01 Jan 2019

Maybe you suggested something unthinkable
like, perhaps, I should get my dog groomed

after she rolled in the poo of a sick horse
and I naturally concluded that you were the absolute worst

for thinking that I would subject an angel to the horror
of being bathed by a blade-toting stranger.

Maybe it was when you were editing my book,
and you said something elitist like,

You can’t end every poem by repeating the last line,
or, You can’t have the word ‘moon’ or ‘firefly’

in every piece you write, and I screamed something like,
I’D RATHER HAVE A SKY WITHOUT A MOON IN IT

THAN A POEM WITHOUT A MOON IN IT, YOU UPPITY
THESAURUS-ADDICTED SNOW GLOBE FULL OF DANDRUFF.

Maybe it was the poly argument, Your face going fire-engine red
the second I mentioned an old flame.

Maybe I decided you didn’t want history to exist,
which meant you wanted me to be magic,

a virgin rabbit pulled out of your pretty hat-
or a lady cut in half.

Maybe it was when you said like six times
in a single sentence and I freaked out about our age difference

and you said I couldn’t argue for my own time-earned wisdom
while throwing a three-year-old’s tantrum. Good point.

Maybe it was one of the times I got so mad
I defriended you on Facebook, and you got so mad

about that I decided you were the shallow end
of the baby pool. Maybe you peed in the water

to prove me right. Maybe it was the night
at the straight bar when the table of men

invited you to sit with them.
Maybe it was when you didn’t notice their eyes

drooling down your breasts, maybe you thought Celine Dion
on the karaoke machine was just bringing you to tears.

Maybe it was when you suggested the bar was queer-friendly
because someone asked if I was Teagan and Sara.

Maybe it was one of those nights
when I was two people, neither of them the real me,

just caricatures of my worst possible qualities.
Maybe it was when we decided to start a podcast

discussing all of our arguments,
then got into an argument during the first five minutes

of recording and canceled the show,
but at some point it hit me:

You and I are always going to fight
for love. I am always going to drag my heart

into the ring to call you knockout
I’ve been waiting for my whole life.

You are always going to trigger me
into rifling through my history

until every ghost is hunted out.
Every fight we had ever had has been an opportunity

to unbruise the past. What hurt would we still be
hoarding in our garage had we never fought

about your inability to park a car because the GPS
stops telling what to do when you pull into to a driveway?

Please run over the mailbox if that keeps me
looking for new ways to send my best self to you.

I am so in love with who we are,
who we have been fighting to become together.

I can’t believe I finally adore a human
as much as I adore my dog.

Even when I’m in the doghouse
I like know you like love me like so much.

Thank you for saying there’s no need
to open our relationship because being with me

is already like being with fifty
impossible people. Thank you for accepting

my friend request for the fifth time this year.
Thank you for screaming

all the way home from that straight bar
to the bed where our bodies made up

while the full moon flew through to the window,
and a firefly poured into the room

and landed in your hand, which you opened
like a ring box and asked me to marry you,

and we were so new, I blushed
instead of answered.

But a firefly is forever and you know what my answer is.
A firefly is forever and you know what my answer is.

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