The last time that she hit me

finally broke the exoskeleton of my heart

I  had built it up slowly

Adding small bits of chitin

A crazy-quilt of polysaccharidic protection

There were often barrages

of rocket-propelled words,

canisters of diminshment-gas

shaming IED’s,

but years of accretion

had hardened my inner being,

I did not feel her attacks any more,

an achievement made possible

by not feeling anything.

Then at the final blow

all I had squirreled away

all the anger, self-loathing,

somatic anguish, began to flow

leaking out of the crack slowly at first,

gathering momentum as the dam eroded

until the torrent was beyond bearing.

I became afraid to cry

for fear I would never stop.

Eventually  the storm passed, the waters leveled

and though the valley of where I had been was flooded

I found myself standing on solid ground

surveying the detritus of half my life

determined to salvage nothing

of the dreams and vows floating in the muck;

From this outcropping, my footing increasingly secure,

cool breezes of love, acceptance, flourishing,

flow all around me.

In front of me

lies a road I could never have imagined,

freedom to become myself,

populated with one’s smile as she sees me approach,

another’s kiss through scratchy beard,

a third’s head on my shoulder, her hair soft in my face.

She gave me a sodalite heart on Valentine’s.

I had been sloughing off grief;

God knows, there’s enough to go around.

But then I held her, cool blue, in my palm.

The thing about stone is that,

imperceptibly slowly,

your body heat warms it.

It’s bigger than I expected

It’s smaller than I expected

That’s snack size

Size doesn’t matter

I”m a size queen

I don’t know if I’ll even feel that

I hope it doesn’t hurt, that’s way bigger than my ex-husband

You look slimmer with clothes on

You look heavier with clothes on

Your hair is so cute like that

Why don’t you take better care of your appearance?

You’re so handsome

I wouldn’t mind being flogged

are you ever going to touch my pussy?

I hate pain

Are those ropes hanging in the corner?

You make me laugh so much

I wish you would (fill in the blank with what their last boyfriend did)

I am falling more and more in love with you

Now we’re not just fluid-bonded, we’re fart-bonded

I think you missed a spot

My ad read, remember how exciting

old-fashioned make-outs were in high school?

We kissed, standing. Her date went to sleep on the other bed.

Lying facing each other, no one had ever touched me

exactly like that, barely grazing skin. I was fully inside myself.

The sky began lightening. She rushed out,

her dog had been in all night.

She agreed to see me again. And again.

I dropped her off with a kiss

4 1/2 years later,

last night.

She sits in my kitchen chair, I stand at the counter.

Safety requires my watching the knife;

we talk without having to hold eye gaze.

At least for now, I speak more truth this way.

They stand in front of the parking lot

of an ethnic grocery, on the sidewalk,

screaming through a portable amp

about how Muslims and fags will burn

for millions of years unless, unless

they let Jesus into their life.

I love their arrogance, their presumption

that their homophobic, xenophobic Jesus

could save anyone, least of all me,

who, as I walk into the store, they single out,

perhaps because of my sparkle,

presuming incorrectly that I am gay,

I can’t imagine they even know what pansexual is,

and, what’s even more humorous about this

is that the store is owned by Lebanese Christians

and half the people going  in are Christians

from other countries, and sure,

there are women in hajib and headscarves there also,

all of us, Americans and immigrants, coexisting,

our common interest our taste buds,

I have been gifted great cooking advice here,

how to use a particular spice I am looking at

or how to prepare an unfamiliar vegetable,

salvation in the form of civility between strangers.

As I leave they ask me if I have found Jesus,

and I remembered a cartoon and said,

what, did you lose him again?

Returning from a long day begun early

I had left her asleep in my bed

She left me a note on my keyboard

written by hand on blue paper

[now tear-stained]

signed, love you always.

The ways she makes me cry

are the best ever.

there are white lines

on the skin of my forearms

the involuntary tattoos

of her fingernails and once

a chef’s knife

 

those days where my mind

wants to trick me

into thinking it wasn’t so bad

I look at them

 

Someday I will sit

and have ink pierced into my skin

an easily visible design

that is about joy and not anguish

 

and I will never

have a tattoo placed as cover

over the ones I dare not forget

the reminders I survived

dripping ripe slabs of watermelon

finding the solution to a design problem

the feel of cool breeze on sweat

warm, but not hot, beach sand under my toes

peeling a mandarin orange

the way impossibly thin shavings curl from the cabinet scraper blade

the taste of your pussy

Is there any relationship

between the idea of a place

and the actual place?

Sunflowers bend in the breeze

in the small bit of dirt

they inhabit at your curb.

Standing, on my way away,

seeing them for the first time again

inexplicable minute variations in each.

A bee lands on one, unconfused,

it’s place and idea

inseparably congruent.