museum of deliberate intimacy

for a few weeks that year it was color-graded

warm like a tv flashback sequence. we spread

our skin out from finger to finger and collected

wood splinters under our tongues. we were not

as angry then as we have become since. back

then we loved for too many seconds per minute

to find time to hate. we spent a weekend in the

mountains pretending to learn each other. that

was the last time i remember being high. it was

the last spring i spent unspooled before we had

to wind ourselves back up & we all developed

trust issues. 

for one full minute i managed to forget what

i knew about danger. i sun-burned my thighs

riding my bike. i did things i did not tell my

mother. i sat alone in the park and made plans.

yes, i learned to lie. i had a number of crushes.

in a series of two-hour bus rides & almost kisses

i learned how to fake intimacy or maybe to fake

faking it. i was celibate. that summer was the first

time i felt too young to be desired and too old

to tell men to stop watching. i uncovered a glitch

in my body and decided to let myself be traded

in silence. 

we pretend sporadically until one of us finally

pulls the plug. this is how i learned to take

each of these brainworms seriously. when i tell

you i’m grateful i know it is childish but we have

to name which dangerous lives we lived and which

we only dreamed. here are several of mine: one.

i was fifteen and we kissed on an empty lawn. two.

i was seventeen and we smoked cigars on the porch

while it rained. three. i was eighteen and i burned

a ring in the wooden table. four. i was eighteen and

we snuck into the museum to see basquiat. five. i was

eighteen and he fed me cake. i could have run

& didn’t have to.