If i am a lioness then you are the felt of my paws, the curve of my jaw, the flick at the end of my tongue. If I am a predator then you are my hunger and my ability, both.
After sex my hair is a cloud around my face and I would hide, but I call it a mane, and growl your name. I stay buried in the taste of your skin, the sound of your breath. Your body is a beckoning and I listen closely to the call.
If I was four-legged I think I would still be unstable. In this life I have been a desert lion, worn golden and ragged in high winds and long droughts. I am thirsty, I am hungry, lord.
Before sex when my anxiety is still curled in my mouth, I burnish myself to a high sheen, softened and sweetened till I am sure you will not taste the salt and dirt of me. I lay down my hair, lay down the hem of my dress, slick my lips so that they will glide under your ear. I hope you will not notice my torn claws, I pray the scars are deep enough in my hide.
If I am a lioness then at last I can understand my need to drag ten claws down your back, close my teeth in the beat of your throat. If I am a lioness then you are my hunger, my ability, my pride.

i don't want to die young

i don't want to die young because organizers run themselves into the ground
i don't want to die young because survivors of sexual violence have shortened lifespans
i don't want to die young because a side effect of smoking is death
i don't want to die young because bisexual people are less likely to have health insurance, less likely to access healthcare, and less likely to receive needed medical care in general
i don't want to die young because poor people have worse health and longevity than rich people

i don't want to die young because i want to promise my partner a lifetime of collaboration
i don't want to die young because i want to give my future publisher the opportunity to market my next book
i don't want to die young because i want to visit a thousand places i haven't yet been
i don't want to die young because i want to organize so many more radical, queer, community events
i don't want to die young because i want to prove that i can overcome every systemic and social hurdle in between me and good healthcare
i don't want to die young because i am not done yet

I have been hungry all month. There has been no cure for it. I have wanted Renee Gladman’s apple juice, the way a femme can douse you whole while making you realize you are only a desert, only a desert. I experienced a fleeting hunger for Sylvia Plath’s feverish skin, the pale honey of it though my memory insists there would be a brittle creaking were I actually to attempt to digest. I have even been hungry for Emily Dickinson’s bees, do you think they were the fat ones, round and fuzzy and a bit overwhelmed? In the desert there are only the thin bees, mean bees, bees with hard shells and rage as exoskeleton.
I live in the flatlands and I thirst for her. My days are a trajectory of the too-white sun burning its medians across my body. When I walk (sometimes I do walk) there are saguaros in her shape, mirages etching her name across my afternoons. There is no crying here, the salt balance is too precarious.
I have been hungry all month and I have walked, in moments, toward what has looked like water. No one recruited me; and I have wandered many landscapes, not lost, but hungry. Like Jonah I push against my faith only when I have been swallowed whole by the predatory instincts of the natural world. No one recruited me, but I thought I saw apples here, or honey, or the ability to make honey. Now I know the whole world is a desert, and I miss the whale.

Every thought has already crossed my mind—it’s all my fault, it’s all your fault, there is no fault—you’ll leave me tomorrow, you’ll leave me in a few years, you’ll be stuck with me for the rest of your life—but I cannot find a way to dig out. I cannot stomp down the sadness and the anger and the confusion and the great, aching bruise of having inflicted sadness and anger on someone I love. In hurting you I hurt myself.
If this is a possible ending I will wedge open every door. If this is death by a thousand cuts I will bury every knife in the yard. As much as I am determined on my love for you, you have also called me to honesty. I must learn what honesty serves, and how to be kind in it. This can be no new age version of keep sweet; you would see through me, and I would become invisible again.
I do remember the curve of your jaw, the curl of your hair, the twist in my heart when you smile. I do remember your goodness, your brightness, your desires for equity and grace. I do remember the way your heart sounds inches from mine.
Why can’t I see my way clear? Why can’t I establish again that foundation of love? I am lost, I feel alone. I don’t know how to move forward, and I don’t think any of my instincts serve.