trying to purge, stumbling into all the ways i tried to keep safe. opened my sock drawer to find all of the scissors i'd been missing since you left the house-- forgot i had stashed them-- remembered that the drawer below had all our butcher knives. 

what is there to say about someone who can level you so completely, and tell you it's your fault? 

times i moved the pets and all their food and all the potential weapons and food you wouldn't miss out of the kitchen into my bedroom, the door with the soundest lock. you never saw. 

i deserve safety. i thought i also deserved love. maslow might be making me choose. 

 how are you

it doesn't matter

how are you

it doesn't matter

how are you

it doesn't matter

it hurts me when you say it doesn't matter

that also does not matter

I have been hungry all month. There has been no cure for it. 

I have wanted Renee Gladman’s apple juice, the way a lover can douse you entirely while making you realize you are only a desert, only a desert. I have sought out 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 exoskeletal rage.

I live in the flatlands and I starve for him. 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 his shape, mirages etching his 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 predators of the 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.

You won’t ever have to contend with the damage you caused 

Even if you come to contend with me

And I , who still love you, cannot hold you accountable 

For the damage you caused to me 

For what you made me see, hear, do, scream

For begging you on my knees in my own living room 

When I said I would never beg again.

Do you make a liar of me? Or a cheat? Or just

Someone small, hopeful, crying, bruised

And waiting for your eyes to look like your own again. 

there is no space in my life right now for anyone who i feel any level of doubt about their ability to recognize and witness my trauma or my healing

i bless and release all those who came to me through ray

i would rather be alone than fight with anyone, i would rather hear silence than song, i would rather be in control of my home, i would rather hold myself down than let anyone else try

i would put ray in jail without batting an eye

i have gone too long without being heard 

 my body is a cement mixer

i have taken in stories about those who lived through the great depression without considering that those folks probably did all that shit while nauseous, hungry, dizzy, hot, cold, or scrambled. 

 this year is the constant calculating of degrees of separation away from those who have been killed in the streets fighting for the world to which i also belong

how many people stand between me and kenosha 

days when i can't bear the screeching of my blood through my veins.
days when i wish being alive was less maddening.

text me all night then pick me up at 4am in your beater, screech open the car door and throw my bag inside, it smells like pot and whiskey. take me anywhere, get me on the highway, show me the stars and the blackest dawn you can. i have been too sober for too long.

in writing i most often take small, beautiful moments and re-illuminate them, find something in them. i am finding little to love about these long weeks.

i wake up too early every day, go to bed too late, the insides of me ticking with a pace that doesn't belong to this world any more. last year i'd have used the energy. this year it sits inside my body, coiling up and pushing at the edges of my self-image.

who am i when i am not productive? i wish this question was not so unsettling.

in the beginning i saw those memes about "take the opportunity to sit still," "reconnect," "nature is healing and can heal you," you all saw the white women posting them. aside from the poor timing, aside from the poor grammar and graphics, the forced recognition of personal space, pace, and load has not been welcome.

what's the point of finally being able to sit with how queer i am, how tired i am, how focused i am, how independent i am? there is nowhere to go with that knowledge, no access point to community or solidarity that would make me feel better about the kind of odd beast i have turned into.

to look back at my first writings in the quarantine, i already predicted my own outcome: that i will remain sunk in swirling doubts and needs and pressures (this is a feature of the environment i choose, not a bug), all the while knowing there is nothing to be done but wait, and be still in the center of it.

what would anyone else do if all the workhorses stopped working?
what does it take to free all the workhorses?

i just feel soooo overwhelmed. and i feel so keenly right now my most common deep-heart complaint: what if i wasn't capable? what if i wasn't as fiercely determined, as able to find resources, as stalwart, as strong, as adaptive? what if i couldn't do this-- then it must necessarily go a different way-- so why can't it now go another way? why does this whole situation have to land squarely on my own shoulders?
but no, i'll just keep making lists of christmas gifts to give, work projects to complete, recipes with cheap ingredients we can afford.
i feel like i can't have a savings account because, with someone entirely dependent on my income, i still feel like i owe honesty about the assets i do have. how can i say, you can't have money for pot, because in six months we're going to call a plumber? how can i say, you can't have money for toilet paper or shampoo or dog food, because in three months the fuel lines in my car need to be replaced? but i have to, i have to find a way to do that, otherwise we will never be able to take long-term care of ourselves.
the level of dependency that rae has on me is endangering my ability to be as independent as i need to be, in order to be satisfied with my own life, values, and identity.
how many times have i said, we need to talk about money? how many times, we need a plan? how many times, monthly budgeting and costs?
if i lose my health insurance again in 2020 it will be because i chose to afford rae's living expenses over my own. it will be because i chose rae's health over my own.
i'm not okay, and, you can't support me if you are not willing to work through a whole discussion about money, resources, energy, and time.
the back pain is at this point metaphorical.

I DONT THINK IM CRAZY
i do think i'm alone
i do think the people around me do not support me; some of them are allowed the excuse of years of training to not do anything to or for me
but now i am wondering if that's a sign that i am in the wrong place

if i cannot move the board, i am the wrong leader for the board
if i cannot be an equal partner in my relationship, i am in the wrong relationship

i feel gaslighted. how does everyone around me say the right thing and do nothing? how do we share these common values and yet i get to hold all the bags? why do we have discussions in which we mutually agree to participate in a project, and then i am responsible for its execution and completion? that includes cleaning the stupid fucking kitchen.

what would happen if i did nothing for anyone else for one whole day?

drag is saving my life.
i have consumed every facebook live show and every ounce of color and shine
my favorite queen, statuesque and gorgeous and charming, from her living room
where her partner, in a bejeweled jacket, joins her, watching her virtual tips come in:
"oh my god, we can pay the mortgage!" he says, "hush," she says,
twirling.
later we are preparing for our own missive from our house,
the queerest place i know how to build,
my partner is teaching me how to be something else.
"the point is to be as ugly as possible," they say, pulling out
an array of darker browns and blacks than any foundation i currently own.
the sweetest thing that has ever happened to me:
my partner, drawing contours on my face as we turn into stage selves
"it takes a lot to make you ugly, honey."

i can't fix this

a space without you in it:
silent-- but not quite-- falling motes
of dust and grackles outside the window.
how did you take even your smell with you?
how did you pack up any hope of your homecoming?
nothing here obeys the clock,
nothing here is inevitable.
how many cups of whiskey-- how many times
did i wash the cup that your new woman
drank from-- how many
sunlit porch hours--
which one of us is gone?

Weeks ago, terse, tired, begging for darker and quieter so that I could enable the sleep I needed so badly.
This week: anxious, grasping, leaving lights on and tv up to drown out my internal dialog of panic so that my eyes can stay shut.

I just want a clean kitchen, a full pantry, that one spatula I love to never wear out. I want my partner safe and healthy, my family employed and fed. I just want the impossible.

well all right, i'm fraying a bit at the edges. this morning rae said "i'm sure if we were really stuck, my parents would rescue us" and i said "but what if we have to rescue them?"
this is me with every structure that should feel supportive: it will break, and we will have to fix it; it will stop, and we will be without; the technology will break, the check will never come, the moon will never rise, we will live in this day forever.
there is nothing to do now but wait. we will schedule our conference calls and our video chats and write our emails and our memos and what if in a few months every business we try to prop up is shut down any way?
there is nothing to do now but wait. and get high, and pet the dog, and wait.

in times like these we all need to lean on the deep sustaining of a world that stretches beyond ourselves.
some people will look up to the sky, and pull their faith down from inside the stars.
some people will listen to the trees, put their faces to the wind, and sink roots into the earth that is our home.
some people will hold the hands of others, cradle the heartbeats of humans they love, and build strength in togetherness and community.
so maybe you will die bleeding, coughing, choking, in pain. maybe you will die quietly, alone. maybe the end of your life will be part of a global catastrophe. maybe the end of your life will approach you well after this moment has passed.
there is something in these moments where NOW feels so serious that we are forced to look forward, forced to look outward.

when my brain is making serotonin, i:
feel more sexual toward rae
want to show love toward my friends and family
sing in the car
don't let little things get to me
am happy to make coffee, meals, etc
make conversation with coworkers
am more interested in being social and being with others
feel like the future is brighter
feel grateful for past choices

we live in an absolute poverty of love. we are destitute in our ability to care for each other.
gabriel roccoforte died. thousands of babies die here every year.  i try to love those babies-- by donating to organizations that provide doulas and maternal assistance, by supporting the health and human services levy, by considering adoption or fostering in my own life-- but that doesn't make them any less dead. thousands of urns, with tablespoons of dead hope inside.
kevin williams writing about the blinding poverty of empathy we experience. that people can read a heartfelt autobiography from a striving, struggling stranger and respond with "he probably did drugs." when any poor person could tell you, most of us would love a job selling drugs more than we'd love the opportunity to do drugs.
if i wasn't here, everyone would find a way. isn't the sign of good leadership that someone else can easily take your place? that we should strive to bring others up with us, make ourselves replaceable. if i wasn't here, nothing would collapse.

on the first day of 2020 we spent time together, and separately, and together. and we had dinner together at our dining room table, with a candle and music and holding hands, and you smiled at me and showed me that you can hear me, love me, know me, stand with me.
our disagreements are getting sharper; we are more able to hurt each other, when we feel backed into a corner. the hurt we feel seems to me to center in not being heard. and this makes sense to me, and i almost like this, about our fights. that we are fighting to be better known by each other, to be better understood.
my god, the lump in my throat when i think about losing you. the break in my heartbeat that threatens to undo my whole body.
there is no one i would be with in this moment but you. there is no one i would support or accept support from, love or be loved by, hear or be heard by, but you.