I.

Drinking on a Tuesday is just a Tuesday here.
When you wouldn’t walk me home for my contact case
I cried like the rummed-up little girl I was (am)
walking back to your place on the train tracks.
It was the first time since I moved here I’ve been able to cry;
so it all came down in snot and salt.
Every last thing. The pressure and my father and depressive
tendencies, my mother won’t see me. blurted on the grimy floor of your bathroom
I couldn’t get up for sobbing.
How I don’t love you. And I’m not going to love you.
But I don’t think you’re going to love me either
(I didn’t say that out loud).
You held me anyway;
shame. because no one sees me like this.
This is the way that I am
When my contacts fell out
I stuck them in saline filled shot glasses and you told me to blow
my nose on a paper towel. Then undressed me like I was two again
and held me while I cried myself to sleep.

II.

Sometimes you’re at your lowest
curled up naked in a helpless bed
inadequate with nerves and pressure
so we just talk about our lives
and I hold you, and you cling to me
It’s more intimate than *** anyway.
About my weak ankle and your broken wrist,
our families, all the times we’ve been
kicked out of our homes.
One day you might come home
and listen to the jazz music in June with me
we’ll take a picnic and meet my families
One day I might go to your home
and climb the tree on a cliff
eat beef and broccoli with your uptight step mother
and see all the walls you’ve painted in the city
all the secret underground sewers painted with your name.

III.

Sat on a still plane in the gentrified south
panicked about what exact day it was that month.
One day too late. Which is when you start to worry.

We love so young and free,
but I know you don’t really love me.

We’ve got big, big plans that don’t include each other.
No mistakes can hold me down to you, nothing.

I am meticulous with foil packets and times.

My sweet artist, I don’t know how to ask
why you stick around, if you’re following my rule,
if you’re in it a little bit for my brain too.

I’ll charm your friends and make sure you get your hair cut.
You’ll teach me to brew your coffee and smoke a pipe

As long as you don’t love me,
I don’t love you.