I am a magnificent, fucked up universe.

I am a body of extremes. Too hot to eat, too happy to write. Too tired to sleep. Hunger/nausea, sobriety/intoxication, exhaustion/mania. Teach me the meaning of moderation; this dictionary excluded it.

Tonight: sinking into my bed, with the fresh sheets, and the pillows stacked justso, and the heat that keeps skin from touching skin from touching. Sink into this bed. Sink into that space where the words live. Somewhere behind my throat. I unfold into this pulse. Into this taut and scraped body. Into these knees; into pain like a knife’s edge under the throbbing spider web nerve endings. I have been knitting new skeins of scar tissue, slowing the mechanism.

Entropy (entrəpē) noun:  lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder. See also: the way shadows drape across playgrounds. Our bodies clothed in moonlight, sunlight, the dirty crumbling streetlights. I never trust white sheets. I mean I never trust myself to be clean.

I want to write a poem about your hands, but every word sounds so trite. Teach me to transcribe the language of your forehead. The way your eyebrows says Come hither like my hips (shoulder width and thrust forward, chin to sky and eyes unfocused, kissing horizons.) The river divulging gifts as the sun sank behind my consciousness. 

There’s this thing I do lately where I’m talking. I feel my tongue moving. The vocal cords create a series of vibrations that resonate. Tongue, lips, teeth. The ears register resonations, forming coherent combinations of speech. The brain slips, disengaged, and I don’t know what’s coming out of my mouth until it’s said. Two nights ago the full moon leaned close to hear me say I’m scared. To hear me say I need. Or maybe I didn’t say those things at all. But we left anyways, bare skin and a stolen flower. Remembering daisies, the way bears sneeze, and sneeze, and sneeze. But I held it to my face like oxygen, walking the blocks that seem so long in the dark.

Then your kitchen. Then bones propped against counters and hard wood. Mouths, and hands, and words, and I don’t know how to explain what you mean to me. Let’s disregard chronology because it just makes us crazy. Or sad. And by us I mean me. Three days prior I tell a friend She is a good person to We with. You can wordify anything if you verb it. Friday night: Strawberry Wine and a slow-motion spin. Lessons in physics. Lessons in geometry. Straddling the tire swing, world careening, and entropy taking the backseat to centripetal force. The physics of our bodies stacked together under moonlight.

It’s easier when there are no boundaries, I said. I said, When there are no lines I can’t cross them. The slant of Katherine's mouth calls me chickenshit and I know she’s probably right. I pay her to call me out. I move in circles, and circles, and circles. I don't want to fuck this up. A yellow legal pad, and the words I’ll never see.

But there. Acknowledging the We of us in your kitchen, propped against cupboards and hardwood. Eventually, morning. Eventually wake up, wake up, and Did you know? you say. You say, They call it the thunder moon, while the horizon chafes and I wonder about rain. Memorize the ways yellow light and grey sheets cling to your body. What if you didn’t know what wind was? you say. You say How would you explain the way trees move? A green expanse of trunk shimmies over your neighbor’s rooftop, unexplained.

This is how I say I love you. Sprawled across the tabletop, hands outstretched thinking Hold this, hold this, hold this. Hold the Me of me. Sometimes I am terrified and small, and sorry. I hope you know that some days I have to be invisible. Or a bear. I guess that’s at the heart of this. I was worried that if I started needing you I’d never stop. I don't want to stop. Please, cradle me gracefully. Pour over me like moonlight on a tire swing.

I want to make a meal of your kneecaps. And I don’t know how to write, don’t know how to write, don’t know how to write this out. Or write about kissing hard lines and rigidity. A wrenching in the angle of the jaw. Between us: nothing rigid. Everything animal, somehow soft. Even when you sink your teeth into the meat of me. Fold me into the den of your ribcage. Claim my neck with your side-to-side wobble. Please fill this body’s empty space.

I’ll find words for your hands eventually.

xoxo

-b

Hideaway with me some more.

Homo Hideaway

Room type: Entire home/apt

Accommodates: 16+

Bedrooms: 5

Bathrooms: 3

Beds: 14

This gorgeous home was perfectly suited for the 2014 Tranquil Women’s Overnight Crafting and Prayer Retreat. Nestled in a charming gated community, we rested easily knowing our activities wouldn’t unnecessarily pester the neighbors. The guaranteed privacy also facilitated an unanticipated amount of daytime nudity. The winding mountainous drive past the lake was breathtaking. Granted, we enjoyed the vertiginous scenic overlook much more before the debilitating two-day hangovers.

The two-story, 5 bedroom “cabin” comfortably slept the six of us. The heart-warming sayings and Jesus-chic décor reinforced our already strong sense of integrity. We appreciated but didn’t utilize the multiple bunk beds, upstairs living room, and creepy gender-specific playrooms. Unfortunately our stay was too short to peruse the extensive library of self-help and religious lifestyle books! However, we were able to huddle around the scrapbook and read aloud the Hideaway story. We noticed that somebody-definitely-not-us spilled red liquid in the binding. Grape juice, perhaps? Children are so careless! We thoughtfully tucked it into the bottom of the blanket hamper upon departure. We wouldn’t want it to sustain any more damage.

While we appreciated the house’s rules, the absence of a corkscrew made it very difficult to break the No Alcohol policy. Not to fret! We’re an incredibly resourceful bunch. Through sheer determination and teamwork, we successfully opened 2 bottles of wine before reinforcements arrived. The spacious kitchen was perfect for family-style breakfast as well as shoveling molten hot pizza into our drunk little faces.

The sports equipment in the garage allowed us to participate in all manner of non-homosexual physical activities. Between football, soccer, and basketball we were occupied for longer than anyone anticipated. We also tested the limits of how many balls a human can juggle while holding a mimosa. The property’s rolling green hills were perfect for rolling down, though we might suggest the owners install a safety net at the bottom? Nudity, high velocity rolling, and thorny underbrush made an unpleasant combination.

Our group was also visited by some charming wildlife! Vladimir the toad forever etched his small, slimy self into our hearts and souls.

The real star of the weekend was the hot tub (or the Tepid Tub as we affectionately nicknamed it). The first day we couldn’t figure out the broken heating mechanism. But once we put our thinking caps on/removed several of the clogged filters, the tub reached a comfortable 104 degrees. The hours of naked soaking really cultivated a sense of group camaraderie. We were able to participate in cooperative activities such as hand-feeding each other, and exuberantly singing our unofficial anthem, Fancy. The hardest part of the whole trip was leaving the hot tub. Literally, exiting the hot tub after hours of drinking was a feat! Luckily I had my elbows, shins, and face to catch my fall.

[Sidenote: the mucky human sludge that resulted from forgetting to reinstall the clogged filters overnight made avoiding the hot tub Sunday morning much easier.]

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Spiffy’s restaurant. Their charming buffet included a salad bar, breakfast bar, and a dessert table. The congealed gravy and weirdly sticky sausage paired well with ranch dressing and lemon bars. Several cups of lukewarm coffee ensured our stomachs stayed in a moderately distressed state for hours after the fact.

Overall, Homo Hideaway was an enriching experience in sisterly solidarity and bonding. We left that gated community with our hearts full of love and our cars full of empty bottles, cans, and wine boxes. Our livers and that house may have suffered irreparable damage, but the blurry half-memories will warm our hearts longer than a tepid tub.

Angels on your body.

                -b (+ the Tranquil Women’s Crafting and Prayer Circle)