#isobelwrites

[isobelfree]

The novel I’m been writing for literally ten years (on and off, but still!!) is FINALLY almost ready to go out into the world. I’m just putting the finishing touches on it and making sure it all flows how I want it to, but it’s almost there! And she’s got a cover and everything!!

[isobelfreedman]

But I Don’t Say a Lot of Things

I want to see your face

when you find out

that I have found myself,

and find out that self is so far from

where you thought I was

that you hardly recognize me.

I want your brain to scramble

for information, to wonder

where it all went wrong,

to think back to the last time

you told me to stop complaining,

the last time you told me

that I wasn’t really depressed,

to stop whining for God’s sake,

the last time you told me

you couldn’t talk to me anymore

because you were out of

anxiety pills

for the night

and I was exhausting you.

I want you to think back

to all the times you didn’t want me

to feel things as much as you did,

and then I want you to

look at me now.

Look at how I’ve found new passions

and how I’ve been acing courses,

and how I’m working a job

and being a leader to younger students.

Look at me laughing late at night

with friends who have become family,

and watch how they hug me

and ask if I’m okay

and tell me they miss me.

That’s what a friend looks like.

I want you to see that.

Look at how I went through hell

in the last year, trying to figure out

who I was without your help,

and look how unbelievably, radically,

beautifully comfortable

I am in my own skin

now that I have figured it out.

Look at how full and bright and colourful

my life has become.

Look at how I know what I want,

and look how unafraid I am

to go and get it.

Some days are grey and dark.

Some days I want to rip a hole in

my chest and cry forever,

and some days I don’t want to be alone

and I cling to others until it’s

too late to feel lonely anymore.

But none of that is because of you,

and I will get through it all

with the help of friends that I have found

and with the strength that I have found

now that you are no longer around

to take it from me.

I am living, I am myself,

I am more myself than I have ever been,

and you, my love, are gone.

Inspired by x.

[isobelfree]

I was sixteen, lying on the floor of the school’s music room. I could feel thin wiry carpet against my hands, hard floor under my back. For some reason we were all lying there, heads close, clustered in a heap, singing Chasing Cars.

If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?

It was ten years ago now, so the memory is faded around the edges, but I remember feeling warm, electric, connected. I remember relishing the closeness with these people I cared about. It’s a happy memory. It was a happy memory. It was.

It was all about her, though.

Looking back at my memories of my high school music club is like when you take off sunglasses after wearing them for a while and suddenly realize that you’d been seeing the world in a slightly different hue than it really is. Had everything always been so blue?

The happy memories only stayed happy for as long as she made me happy.

I remember a sunlit afternoon practicing after school, my arms wrapped around my dad’s borrowed Dreadnaught guitar, all of us joining in and singing If This Is It.

If I had one chance to freeze time and stand still and soak in everything, I’d choose right now.

I would have. I would have stopped time and stayed there forever. Back then I thought this was the best things would ever be. Back then I thought I’d want this forever. I loved this club. I loved these people. But I loved her the most. The way I loved her was woven into the love I had for the rest of them, inextricably tied. The whole thing is dyed her colours. These memories were a beautiful house built on a foundation without any structural integrity, and now looking back i can’t see the architecture for the rotting floors.

Can a memory still be a good one if the part that made it good was never good at all?

I was part of something. I laughed with people and ate with them and played music with them and felt like I belonged somewhere. I felt spotlights under my face and learned new songs and found confidence in a place where I’d been scared. Those are good things.

But she was the best thing. But she wasn’t.

Maybe I’ll try separating out things that are inseparable. Maybe I’ll try to un-mix colours of paint swirled together. Maybe I’ll try covering one eye and seeing half a picture. Maybe I’ll pull the tablecloth out and let the dishes fall and crack when they hit the floor. Maybe I’ll pull out the thread and ruin the sweater but still see if it covers me. Maybe I’ll use up a bottle of stain remover and toss the memories in the wash, cycle after cycle, and see if I can wring her colours out. But I think there are some things you can’t take apart.

[isobelfree]

Preview: Julie Bean (2022)

[isobelfree]

I’m working on revising my novel right now, and I found this one-shot I’d written from the perspective of Emmy, a character that my main character Julie shared a kiss with before retreating back into the closet. It’s the only scene I’ve ever written from a non-Julie perspective. You don’t really need context for it; I think it stands well on its own.

-

To date, I have fallen for eight straight girls, from Amy when I was thirteen to Tess last year, but it seems as if it’s the ninth that’ll really fuck me up.

There’s just something different about Julie.

I sit on the edge of her bed as she gets ready to go out; we’re planning on hitting up the new gay bar that just opened downtown, and despite my best efforts to convince her that she’s going a bit overboard, she’s convinced she’s got to look nice. “We haven’t gone out in forever, so I want to actually put some effort in, Emmy,” she says as she dusts blush over her cheeks.

“Who are you trying to impress?” I wonder out loud, looking down at my own outfit; I’m in a short-sleeved button down that I dug out of the back of my closet and my second-best pair of black jeans. (Not even my best! That’s how little I care!) “It’s a gay bar, there aren’t gonna be straight guys there.”

Julie shrugs. “Don’t you want to try and pick someone up tonight?”

“I don’t have to try, Jules. If I want to pick someone up, I will.” It’s true, really; you don’t need to try very hard to snag a desperate, horny baby gay at one of these joints. If I really wanted to, if my mind wasn’t otherwise, stubbornly, infuriatingly full of someone else, I could be between the thighs of a decently cute girl by midnight tonight, could be making her moan against my sheets and maybe even say my name, if she remembered it.

It’s not happening tonight, though. I know that much. Not with this girl refusing to leave my brain.

Julie snorts. “Not with that attitude. Or that shirt.”

“What’s wrong with this shirt?” I look down at the shirt, light blue with white polka dots.

Julie shrugs. “Nothing. It’s fine. I just know it’s not your best one. You’ve gotta dress to impress, my friend. And to do that, you gotta show yourself off a bit.” She runs her hands down over her waist to her hips in an exaggerated motion, and bursts out laughing as she finishes up her makeup. She really does look nice, in a long-sleeved dress that wraps and clings. I blush as I look at her and distract myself with my phone.

This is going to be a long night.

The plan is to meet the guys at their apartment. It’s a short walk to their place but Julie complains for about half the time about how much her feet hurt in her ridiculous heels. “Why did you even wear those?” I ask her, glancing down at my Converse – my newest pair (red instead of black). Much more sensible

“We’ve been over this,” she says, wincing with every step as the shoes dig into a blister on her heel. “I wanted to look nice.”

“Well, you don’t need dumb shoes to look nice,” I say. “You look nice anyway. Like, usually. Like you usually look nice.”

She quirks a smile at me. “Thanks, I guess,” she says, laughing a bit, breathy in the cool March air. I feel something buzz in my stomach, feel a warmth flood my face, something stupid and hopeful and easy to ignore.

We get to Dex and Cal’s fourteenth-floor apartment overlooking the train tracks (not the nicest locale, but their rent here is dirt-cheap). I knock on the door as Julie takes the heels off. “What?” she says to the eyebrow I raise at her. “I’m just taking a break!”

Cal opens the door, and he stares me down, and I stare him down, and it’s like we’re in some sort of Wild West-style standoff and whoever looks away first is the one to admit defeat.

“One of us is going to have to change,” I say finally.

Julie, beside me, is giggling uncontrollably.

Cal and I are wearing the exact same shirt.

“I can’t believe this,” I say as we walk in, shaking my head. “Where did you get this? Do we shop at the same places? Unacceptable.”

“Um, the American Eagle men’s section?” Cal says.

“How dare you!” I say. “You know that’s my favourite place to shop!”

“You can’t claim a whole store, Emmy! Especially when it’s the men’s section. If anyone should have the right to claim it, it should be me!”

“Oh, sorry, are we gendering clothing now? I thought everyone was free to wear whatever they wanted –

“Don’t blame me for gendering clothes, that’s American Eagle’s fault!”

“Guys!” Dex shouts, and we both cut off. “Neither of you are allowed to change, because this is the funniest thing that has happened to us since the Christmas party.”

“Hey!” I cry as all three of them start to laugh. “I thought we agreed to never talk about that again!”

“I’m sorry Em,” Julie says, breathy in between laughs. “But that stocking –”

“And the eggnog!” Cal giggles. “When she started singing and it came out all over –”

“Oh my god, and remember the candles?” Dex cries, and the laughter starts all over again.

“I hate all of you,” I say as I head out of the apartment and flip them off over my shoulder.

The bar is called New Science, which is a name we spend about four minutes trying to decipher before going inside. “What’s the old science?” Cal wonders as we stand there shivering, staring up at the neon sign, lit up in blue and green and orange.

“Maybe we aren’t supposed to know,” Julie says. She’s got a couple drinks in her already, and when Julie gets drunk she gets real philosophical. I mean, sober me can tell it’s all nonsense, but Drunk Emmy eats that shit up.

“You’re so right,” Dex says.

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road,” I decide, heading inside and grabbing Julie’s hand to pull her with me, a motion that’s less necessary and more gratuitous than I’d like to admit. For a moment I focus on the feeling of her hand, fingers cold but palm warm where it touches mine, her skin soft and smelling like the lavender hand cream she uses. But it only lasts a moment, not much longer than a blink, and she pulls her hand away and laughs and calls out for me to come in before I have a chance to memorize her.

For the life of me, I cannot remember if this girl’s name is Catherine or Cassidy. Quite frankly, even knowing that it starts with a C-A is quite a feat for someone with as many beers in her stomach as me.

She’s cute in the vaguely-tomboyish, kind-of-pretentious way a lot of lesbians around here are when they first come out; she’s in a backwards snapback and a loose tank top, bites her lip a lot in a way she probably thinks is endearing. We’ve been dancing and making out for half an hour or so and the only things I’ve managed to learn about her are the first syllable of her name and her drink of choice (vodka cran). Oh, and that she likes to bite my lip as well as her own. That might be fun later, I guess.

Catherine/Cassidy is trying to tell me something, shouting over the pounding sound of the Chainsmokers, but I don’t hear her; I’m scanning the crowd for Julie, realizing that I’d lost track of her.

“Sorry,” I yell as I start pushing through the crowd, feeling sweaty skin and spandex stick to me as I make my way. It’s not a big place, but the flashing lights that spin make the room feel like it’s moving; I feel unmoored, like I can’t quite orient myself.

A hand on my arm makes me jump. I spin around to find Julie, holding an empty plastic cup. “There you are!” she cries. “I didn’t know where you went!”

“I was dancing with someone,” I say, looking back at where I left Catherine/Cassidy, but she’s lost in the sea of equally generic faces. “Didn’t quite get her name but I know it started with a C-A.”

“Was she cute?”

“Eh,” I shrug. “Wanna go and get some air?”

Julie nods and follows me to the side door of the place, which is propped open with someone’s shoe. I step out into the alley and hug my arms close to me. It smells like frost and cigarettes out here.

Julie sighs, kicking at a piece of gravel. “You were wrong about the straight guys,” she says. “There are lots of them here. But spoiler alert, they’re the exact same as they are in regular clubs.”

“Bummer,” I offer, leaning back against a dumpster.

She smiles and perches next to me. “You did try to tell me I wouldn’t find any winners here. Should’ve believed you.”

“Jules, when will you learn that you should always believe me?” I say, shaking my head.

She laughs and knocks her shoulder against mine. I look down at how close her hand is and sigh. It isn’t fair, and it doesn’t matter that it’s not fair, because plenty of things aren’t fair, and it doesn’t meant they wouldn’t be perfect.

I look up and see her face too close to mine; her breath smells like vodka, warm against my face. “Remember when we made out in the kitchen?” she says, low, almost a murmur. She’s grinning.

I blush because of course I remember, couldn’t possibly forget that sunny afternoon in our empty apartment if I tried; the memories are stubborn and stuck, not going anywhere. “Yeah, I remember,” I tell her, inching slightly away. “What about it?”

Julie shrugs. “I don’t know. Just reminiscing.” Her face is still close to mine, and she looks down at my lips, and it would be easier than breathing just to lean down and kiss her and taste the vodka on her mouth and for a moment everything would be perfect. But it isn’t perfect; we’re sitting on a dumpster in a cold alley and I’m a fucking pathetic shmuck and Julie is straight (or at least, she’s convinced herself that she is, and who am I to tell her she isn’t?).

So I sigh, long and shuddering, and slide down till my feet are solid on the cigarette-strewn ground. “Where are you going?” Julie asks me. She looks a bit more dishevelled now than she did when we left our place, lipstick half-rubbed off, but somehow in the weak moonlight of the alley she still looks perfect, and that’s the hardest part of all.

“Back inside,” I say, pulling open the heavy side door of the club. “Gonna try and find that girl.”

I find Catherine/Cassidy near the DJ booth, sipping another vodka cran and pouting to some tall skinny butch; she lights up when she sees me. I feel a brief twinge of guilt as I pull her back onto the dance floor, but it’s only brief, and I down a couple more beers to try and cover up the feeling. I try and lose myself completely in this girl, her scent of sweat and something minty, her hands warm on my face as we kiss, the music pulsing around us like a heartbeat. Later that night when she asks where we’ll go, I say her place, because I can’t be anywhere Julie is, otherwise the spell will be broken. And it works, because by the time I’m in this stranger’s bed, moonlight coming in through the small window of her basement apartment, I’m not thinking of Julie at all.

[isobelfree]

Good evening tumblr, here is a gay scene from my book

[isobelfree]

Currently making the final edits to my most beloved novel and this is a new addition to the main character’s inner narrative as she explores her identity.

[isobelfree]

cartography

There's a newness lighting up your face

like light has shifted -

just a little, 

just enough to cast you into shades

of vulnerability

and new colors of openness

and tenderness

(And your eyes, somehow bluer -

have they always been this pretty?)

So much can be said

through lips against each other,

legs tangling,

bodies grasping for each other,

close not close enough

But we found our voices too -

Do you like this,

Is this ok,

More of that, please -

And so it was that we gently pulled

each other through uncharted waters,

estimating where we wanted to draw lines

on the maps we were making

then carefully testing them

and pushing some of them

as we listened to what we both wanted

and let ourselves feel

After, we both covered up,

blushes and giggles

as we left that newfound light

into the one we're used to,

one where letting ourselves want and be wanted

is still a bit foreign -

But the light isn't all gone

It's there in how you hold my hand

and how we hold ourselves together

and how we look at one another

And I know

rhat now that we've explored

these waters together

I'd like to be lead by you -

and to lead you, the two of us

in tandem -

each one of us taking each other

somewhere new and beautiful

and trusting the other

to keep us afloat

[isobelfree]

On Matching Sunburns and Sleepless Nights

They have mostly left me now, those fragments of who we used to be to each other - that afternoon we sat for four hours in my backyard, facing towards each other while we talked and laughed and cried, then realized the next day that we had gotten matching sunburns - mine covering my entire left side, yours your right. That night we stayed up until 7:00 in the morning without meaning to, until the light started to peek through the windows and we heard birds and we figured we should sleep. I struggled to keep my eyes open that night, even as they burned and strained and my body ached for sleep, because I would have stayed up forever for you. All those sleepovers where I made sure our legs touched, that craving of warm skin against skin. (That time you remarked how hot my legs were.) All those school nights staying up past midnight, waiting for the blue light of a message from you to illuminate the room, talking about secrets or fantasies or fetishes, or talking you down from a razor. I pinched myself over and over so I wouldn't doze off and miss a text from you. I was always the last to fall asleep.

I didn't lose them, those pieces, shards of a picture someone threw at a wall; rather, they make up who I have become, stitched together into the fabric of the person I am, sewn together into a faded quilt thrown into the back of a closet, rarely used but never thrown out. Because the truth didn't matter, doesn't matter, will never matter, but truth is truth nonetheless: I loved you. I loved you. I fucking loved you. I was in love with you, and I shouldn't have been, but that doesn't mean I wasn't. I was in love with you, but it was never going to be enough, and I could only chase you for so long before I had to stop and catch my breath.

And soon I saw the holes, the gaps, all the times you left me alone, all the times you hurt me and I somehow always ended up apologizing for it, all the times you were jealous of what I had instead of proud of me, all the times you didn't care about how I felt and didn't even try to hide it. And the holes got bigger the more I looked back, till if your love was a blanket, I wonder how I ever used to think it could keep me warm. And I didn't care, I kept desperately loving you, even as our threads grew farther and farther away towards breaking; I thought that what I knew and what I felt were the same, instead of the dichotomy I know now that they are. That they were. I let you fling me away like a dirty towel day after day, month after month and the worst part is that I would have taken anything if if meant I could keep you.

Do you remember the night when I told you I loved you? (Begging, desperate, close to tears or already crying, I can't remember.) You said love meant a different thing to you now. But it's always meant the same thing for me: it means that you fucked me up, and I let you convince me all along that it was my fault, and even now, some of me believes you. Even now, the bruises you left on me still show like marks on my skin; they're black and purple and ugly and everyone sees them but nobody has the balls to ask, "what the hell happened to you?" And even now the thought of you makes my chest physically ache. You've managed to break my heart so thoroughly that I can feel it from the inside out.

It isn't fair.

But I'm not allowed to use the word fair. Fair isn't a word allowed to a lesbian who everyone believes is straight. Fair isn't a word allowed to that lesbian when she falls in love with her emotionally abusive best friend...her STRAIGHT, emotionally abusive best friend. You were terrible to me and I loved you anyway and to this day I have trouble convincing myself that it wasn't my fault you treated me like shit. And to this day I still can't figure out if I'm still in love with you or if I hate you; I think what I feel is perfectly in the middle, something fiery and destructive and very, very real.

You don't feel as real to me now though. You're a little like a dream. The memories are the most dreamlike of all. I still remember that day we got matching sunburns, perfectly symmetrical, skin pink and hot from too many hours of relished conversation.

You've probably already forgotten.

My sunburn faded last.

[isobelfree]

So I'm posting here to make it official and hold myself accountable: this summer I will finally be starting the process of trying to find an agent and getting Julie Bean published. Publishing a book has been my biggest dream my entire life, and Julie's story means the world to me. I want to share her with the world, and I'm ready to start that process now. Will I get rejection letters back from every agent I contact? Probably, yeah. But I have to start somewhere, and I'm starting right now.

[isobelfree]

Introducing my newest project: Little Harbor

In a last-ditch effort to get her older sister on the straight-and-narrow, Amy Mortimer’s parents cart the four of them down to the beachside town of Little Harbor, Connecticut the summer Amy turns sixteen. True to her form, Natalie doesn’t take long to find a new crowd to run with, and Amy tags along; really, there isn’t much else to do in Little Harbor. Natalie’s new friends are a good time, and though some of what they do is a little illegal, it’s all fairly harmless. That is, until a murder shocks the town and Natalie, the newcomer with a bad reputation, is suddenly under the spotlight. As the allegations around her older sister begin to build up, Amy has to decide: does she accept the terrible thing Natalie may have done, or does she try to clear her name? Amy suspects that the town’s delinquents are hiding something dark, and armed with an arsenal of mystery novels and a love of map-making, she decides to investigate; together with the enigmatic Thea, a quiet but daring girl whose parents own the pizza place in town, she sets out to uncover the truth. The Mortimers are only in Little Harbor for a few months, but one thing is for certain: the place they leave once the summer ends won’t be the same place it was when they arrived.

[isobelfree]

Modern faerie story: thoughts???

The story centers around three changeling protagonists (faeries who were placed in human homes as infants); having been raised in the human world right before changelings were cracked down on by faerie law, growing up in the same foster family, they decide to find a house together in the above-ground human world when they age out of the foster system, opting against joining the faerie population under the city. However, this doesn't make the faeries very happy when they find out; staying in a human neighbourhood (despite the protective spells that probably work) puts them all on thin ice with the council. So when one of them falls in love with a human girl, they'll have to avoid the faeries finding out at all costs, or risk giving up one of their identities for the sake of the other. Our protagonists are gonna be queer as heck and disabled faerie kids (faerie babies raised in the human world often grow up with compromised health due to their sole consumption of human food and lack of health spells) and they're going to be cute and punk and really bad at casting spells, and the story will be gritty and full of magic and set in a cool city setting. Stay tuned for more.

[isobelfree]

immersion [ɪmˈɚʒən]

The language your mother speaks is one of soft tones and quiet touches; it’s easy to mishear its cadences, but you’ve grown up speaking it, so you always understand what she is saying. The two of you, at the start, are its only living speakers. You speak it with each other in the sleepy-grey mornings, her hands on your skin warm as she wakes you, a plate of toast and jam waiting for you in the kitchen; you speak it over dinner, eating macaroni and cheese out of the pot and giggling as you watch cartoons. You speak it in the night sometimes, after the sounds of your father’s language crash loud and long in your ears and she comes in to crawl in your bed, arms shaking as they hold you. “Everything’s alright,” your mother’s language says, sometimes with words but more often spelled out with touch and feeling and the smell of blueberry jam or hot chocolate. “Don’t be scared,” it says, and “I’m here.” It’s your favourite language, because it is your first, and even as you grow up and begin to trade your mother’s language for the one others speak, you don’t forget what it sounds like. You don’t think you ever could.

Your sister is its only other speaker. She is born when you are eight and she grows up hearing it just like you did. But languages shift, of course, they ebb and drift and change course along with the people who speak them, and by the time your sister is born your mother’s language has evolved into something more hushed than quiet, more worried than calm. It doesn’t say things like “everything’s alright” anymore; instead, the language’s vocabulary grows to include phrases like “go to your rooms, girls, quickly,” and “take care of your sister tonight” and “your dad wasn’t trying to scare you.” You adapt to the changing vocabulary, clinging to the comfort it used to bring you like the well-worn corners of your favourite blanket. Your sister doesn’t feel its comfort, though, and so it’s up to you to translate your mother’s language for her sometimes, explaining its subtext, its semantics, the undercurrent of love and tenderness running through its words and phrases. You spend nights holed up with her in the room you share, just translating, telling her about the times you used to spend with your mother and how it used to feel. “It’ll feel like that again,” you tell her, the light from your nightlight spilling onto her tear-soaked face. She holds onto the stuffed bunny that used to be yours and you’re not sure she’ll ever be as fluent as you.

The night you leave is the loudest you’ve ever heard your mother’s language. She shouts at you and Jenna as you run around the apartment, throwing things into backpacks and suitcases, Jenna crying on her bed. You’ve never heard this language sound so urgent, so frantic; it terrifies you. It’s still loud as you leave that night and it’s loud in the subway station and it isn’t until you’re on the train, backpack tucked between your knees, that your mother’s language takes on its familiar, comforting cadences. “We did it,” is what it says, and “I’m so proud of you two,” and “you were so brave,” and for the first time it sounds full and whole and hopeful. You wonder at how different a language can sound when it’s spoken somewhere new. Jenna falls asleep on your shoulder and you listen to your mother tell you about how wonderful your life together will be now that you’re free, and you cling to her arm and to every word she says, and you realize just how incredible it is for a person to create her own language, to communicate in a way that only you and your sisters can truly understand. You hold your mother’s language close like a life raft, and you know it will carry you through, at least for tonight, on this subway underneath the streets of New York, at ten p.m. on the night you know for certain that this language is what helped you escape.

[isobelfree]

Are you interested in a serial online novel about queer lady musicians??

I have this crazy idea that I want to release my novel Julie Bean online in a serial fashion - like a chapter a week. Each week I would release 3 pieces of content, within 3 days - the song associated with the chapter, the chapter itself, and the flashback/flashforward chapter that comes after it. I'd release it all through a blog specifically designed for this. Would anyone read this?? I feel like releasing serially would be a good way to get a readership/fan base going and keep suspense up. In terms of the novel itself, it follows Julie Bean, a girl in her second year of university who joins a band and things get gay; it's a story about finding your identity and friends and love and found family. If you are interested in this, please like/reply/reblog this post!!

[isobelfree]

Would you read this?

So I want to write a book for middle school girls and I am spitballing here, but what about something like girls are recruited into some science program bc "women in stem" or whatever, but JOKES they're really getting used for some secret government project or some shit (bc the patriarchy and metaphors about male entitlement/ownership!) but MORE JOKES the girls are incredible and band together bc girls do amazing things together and they save the world, and it's gonna have gay rep and bi rep and non-white characters and I am ALL about showing girls that they are powerful when they love and support each other and that queerness in young girls is normal and wonderful and okay! Would y'all read this/recommend it to young girls you know??

[isobelfree]

A Love Letter to the First Girl I Fell in Love With

I was sixteen, and then

I was seventeen, and there you were

and you hated wearing shoes

and you liked drawing peace signs on your arms and legs with eyeliner

and your eyes were big and blue like a painting out of proportion

and I was so in love with you

I didn’t know it

though,

not then,

because hindsight is 20/20 and back then I couldn’t see a thing;

I was trying to navigate a city using a map

for the next town over,

and what a funny thing

- what a sad thing, really, maybe the saddest -

to be so deep in love with someone and

not even know it,

as if I could touch but not feel, hear but not listen,

as if there was a glass wall between us and the most

I could do was press my nose against it

I hung onto every word you said like

ledges I kept slipping off of

and it never even occurred to you that I was

falling

I was a yes girl then,

a “yes of course we’ll watch that movie” girl,

a “yes of course let’s have three sleepovers in a row” girl,

ready to lay down every single card I had

if it meant the minutes I had with you

stacked up to something that mattered

Those sleepovers -

those nights spent sticky-hot,

not wanting to budge from my spot under blankets

on your basement couch,

our legs entwined in a perfect knot,

and if I try I can still remember now the feeling

of holding my muscles perfectly still,

of legs cramping and feet falling asleep

but all of it worth it

because I got to touch you

You were never much of a hugger,

but when I did get a hug from you

I clung to it like something buoyant,

and I did the same thing to compliments

from you,

rare as they were,

because they made my stomach flip

in a way that was unrecognizable to me at the time

but that I knew was true and good

Once, we sat facing each other in my

backyard, talking for hours, then realized

the next day that we’d gotten matching sunburns -

mine covering my left side, yours your right,

and what a perfect fucking analogy for you,

that something so painful made me

so

damn

happy