We’re 6 roommates, on summer vacation before our sophomore year and we take turns planning our nights. Last night was Sunny’s choice so we found ourselves at “Sister Louisa's Church,” one of the fun gay bars in this little college town. We’ve been to 5 LGBTQ bars in the Atlanta area this summer and they’ve all been skittles.

This being a Lesbian bar, we all felt empowered to dress down, dance a few times, and just have some harmless fun. “Hmm.., Sunny said, wrinkling her nose, “I think queer or girly are better terms than lesbian. Lesbian seems to have a mascular take - like we want to be boys - and that’s not it at all.”
“I bow to your superior, informed, cultural finickiness,” Lisa noted.

WE dance a few times but Sunny never stops. One moment Sunny’s there, for a swig of her drink and the next, she’s twiring off with some attractive (30ish?) woman - it keeps happening. “We need to put an apple tracker on her.” Bili said, but when the songs ended she always came back to us.
“That womyn had more than two hands.” Sunny said, gulping on her drink and fixing her hair.

It was time to go, past time actually. We’re on a schedule these days. We spend our mornings playing disc golf or water-skiing and our afternoons studying. We’re trying to re-engage with college work in a gradual, 3 hour a day, low anxiety way.

Sunny (A molecular, cellular, and developmental biology major), Lisa and I (Molecular biophysics and biochemistry majors) are all on the pre-med track. Next year we’ll tackle physics together and we’re already grinding away on examples of the problem-sets we’ll see next semester. So far the shared stress has helped the next-level classes seem easier and more engaging.

I was the watchdog last night, sentenced to preventive sobriety, and tasked with corralling everyone when the time came to leave. “Fair warning!,” I said loudly, between songs, “reality is going to *****-stab you ladies in the back tomorrow morning.”
“I think you mean *****-SLAP,” Leong said, ever the aphorism police.
“Whatever it is, it’s going to hurt.” I amended. I’d been working (whining), stubbornly for half-an-hour to convince them to leave and finally, I said, “I’m texting Charles.”

OH, THEN the girls started gathering their things. “Ok, Yeah.., I see how it is.” I added, holding my phone like a grenade with the pin out.

The following morning Anna’s situationship broke up - by text - as if to add to the pain of her hangover. In situationships, it’s inevitable that one stakeholder will hope for more - but you have to paint it as casual, as no big deal. She’s pretending she doesn't care but anyone can see she’s been crying.

On the other side of the emotional universe - I’m riding-a-high - because Peter, on a facetime call, said he missed me - but it’s not just that - he seems more energetic, interested and actually romantic. I like us together. We’re choral (there’s no definable lead). I’m practically snoopy-dancing around the house.

your floor is ******* filthy.

i can hear you in the background behind me
saying my name the way you curse
hold it in your mouth, hot
spit it out
watch it burn,
embers flying through the smallest gap in your teeth.

you stare hard at me,
maybe to see where the sparks catch
hoping one lands on my face
or in my eye,
whichever will move my gaze from the floor
to you.
but i can't.

i'm still looking at your gross ******* carpet.
it's all i can focus on,
a stained oriental with crunchy grey tassels
that i can only assume used to be white.

i'd like to ask you about it,
but it's not my turn for questions.
i'm not sure if i'll even get one
before the curtains catch flame.

so i sit there,
silent, fireproof
waiting for you to finish using
each and every wrong
ever done against you
as kindling
for the anger you feel towards me.

i think it upsets you
that i can't get burned anymore,
but you still sit
white hot,
ashen gray rings around your eyes
asking why i just won't catch.

you're breathing smoke from your nostrils,
but you're no dragon.
you're a book,
451 pages of relation
and situationships
and drunk texts
and missed calls
from cleaning ladies
and therapists,
angered that you
ever caught spark
from my ashes
and burned.

The truth is I don't want to be a lingering after thought. A space that fills void. An unattainable purge of what you have been lacking. A comma in the break of a sentence, I've been in to many situationships to idealize anything less than romantic. To many almost & could have been something's. It's like a reflection of the sun but the heat never dissipates close enough for me to know it's real. The existence of it leaves my soul aching in hunger even though my belly is full. Maybe that's the difference of it, getting high off sugar and the other endorphins. One the body can sustain, the other just a flicker of a high that last as long as the burst of affection. To be desired is a supernova of lust. It's a star that burned out centuries ago but the light still fools you into believing it's present. To be loved is like the moon and all of its phases because even when the moon shows up in parts, you know it's wholly still there. Still yours. Still will rise again tomorrow.

Someone was told me that the sounds of our friendship was the adventures of a lifetime.

It wasn’t until I unlearn the possibilities of wrestling with today’s truth and lies.

Becoming a wreck in the ship was like becoming ooh hey and now it’s time to walked away without saying our goodbyes in time and let it dies down and fly.

My heart had to relearn of our hidden secrets which relies on an unseen, understanding, and uncompromising situationships.

The real reality wasn’t accelerating the acceptance of what it could’ve been if we were to ace of what we’re to ready to face it.

It was actually facing of what are the ways of what we’re dealing of our ourselves in tiny pieces.

This modern love is about
*******
Vulnerable nakedness
And sharing words drenched in ulterior motives
After ten pm texts
Netflix and chill
drunk sloppy saliva
Dead weight silence
Ghosts and poltergeists
who look at your stories
While screening your calls
Bored married baldies
**** pics
Heavy thumbs swiping right and left
2 second clever convo starters
cliff jumping into ****** innuendos
Thousands of pictures of soft male hands holding animals as props
Dead or alive
Shirtless mirror pics
Pretending to reach for your wallet
Situationships
Friends with benefits
“Hanging out”
Daddy’s who date with their toddlers

Every part of it
A fake feeding to the soul
I walk up to the table with a Michelin  star meal to be offered crumbs
Insatiable
I choose couch over barstool
Cat over dog drool
******* over touch

And do you have
Instagram
Facebook
Tik tok
Or a brain?

Hatfishing
Height fibbers
Terrible smiles hidden behind pursed lips
The ABCs of
misogyny
objectification  
And
“I don’t like condoms”


The most sacred thing in the universe—
Human connection and intimacy
Stained.
A perverted shallow watered down sea
Love liquified and left washed up
The tides never ending
Swallowing me head first
While some man baby expects me to swallow head first

you’re my little secret, vicious
how you come into my life
without a plan, heaven gracious
when you hold my back, and
tell me you’ve been waiting,
for my texts, i wish i missed my ex,
you look like a convenient solution
to a problem i haven’t defined yet.
because i’m fine - at least
that’s what you call me, to tell me
that your mine for the night, but
i’m not your protector, just a collector
of words, situationships, sometimes
masking longing for maturity, just cause
i’m a therapist, doesn’t mean i make sense.
i still don’t know what i’m longing for,
you stay a while, hold me more,
because i asked, but mostly because
you’re too drunk to drive, you lost
my number in the crash, it was
a while back, so you email me to ask.

In the beginning, they ask you the same thing
all these empty promises that don’t mean a thing
Conversations about everybody that left them
but hope that you will accept them
heard the words “I love you” more than enough
confide in them because they’re the ones I can trust
but here’s the craziest part of all
they all left with me standing alone after helping them crawl
there was never any love, I was a stepping stool
investing real love like I always do cause I’m a fool
everybody isn’t the same, that’s what they say
but I see no differences just the same games they play
Granted, I’ve had my fair share of breaking hearts
situationships ending with me walking away, I played my part
but when I chose to love I was met with the same outcome
& people question why I always tend to doubt them
Love was always given out, way more than I gave myself
with my only regret being the lack of love for myself