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.