Work Text:
Relative Theory / Relativism
You come home for summer break
from the boarding school you’ve lived in for half a year
and the thing that leaves your mouth as you enter the door
is a name of a boy and a word
that sounds so much like hate
your father greets you, he tells you to behave
but you don’t and you keep complaining
I hate him you tell him
and he asks you who he is
and you say his last name and tell your father he’s
an ugly boy with an annoying face
it’s strange the way this works because
you’re describing an image so ugly that
your father imagines an ugly boy with ugly hair and
an ugly nose and an ugly face
but as you tell this story, you think of his eyes and the way
they’re an odd shade of green, the way
his brow quirks and fuzzes when he gets upset,
because of something you said
and it’s odd how you can tell him this story but not see the same person:
He imagines someone ugly, a person that’s
fuzzy around the edges with a haze
of someone he doesn’t know
you think of a boy with messy hair and green eyes and
the dumb way
he lights up when he’s happy when he’s sitting
a room away from you
you finish your story, you end it with I hate him
your father tells you to forget about him
but you don’t
and you keep talking about him
until your father knows who he is, and
you keep talking even until the skivvies
can recognize him in a lineup,
until they know him by his name
There's a different boy each time:
one that's your father's with the ugly face and the blurried sides
the skivvies' with his name, the things he's done and does
and the one that's yours—with the green eyes and the rough brows
and the hand that didn’t want to touch yours
You don’t know him the way you want to, and
they don’t know him at all
Skin Suits
Pushing forward, I don’t know how I got here but
I’m thinking about a world where I call you by your name and you call me by mine
I’m thinking about a world where the word “love” stands in between my name and yours
and where we can say those words out loud without sounding ridiculous
where we can say it out loud because it’d be real
and no one would think anything of it
we would be real—we would stay
maybe in another life we can get there
in another life we’re singing songs under stars
and I get to love you the way the rest of them do
and this ache wouldn’t be imaginary and without purpose
I have no right to mourn you the way I do
maybe if it were your mother who raised you I could have loved you
in every world with you and me in it, you’re kissing her and I’m the boy in the back who gets in the way
in every world with you and me in it, we meet during first year and we don’t talk to each other the way I pictured we would
and at the end, there’s always you—going home to the girl with red hair and with eyes brown like the earth you were almost buried in
and I go home to my girl with hair that’s a dark brown like yours, and she looks a bit like you too
In each path of this web, we come home to them and
I’m still waiting for when the time will come
that I come home to you and you come home to me
in one of these worlds, our girls give us boys that look like you and me
they meet during first year and they talk to each other the way I’ve always thought we’d do
and I love him and raise him right
and they’re close—
with held hands and tight hugs and foreheads that touch
but the girl with red hair comes back each time
and in this world, it’s me that falls for her
and I’m the one that leaves
how many times do we have to do this until we get to that point where I can kiss you and it won’t feel wrong?
how many times until we’re finally the ones that stay?
when there’s no girl with red hair and we’re the ones that love each other instead
I’m waiting—I keep waiting
and then it’s you and me again but it’s never you and me
In one world, you almost kill me and then you’re kissing her right after it happens
In other worlds I’m the bad guy but you still find it in you to love me
but those worlds aren’t as real and most people don’t know that they exist
and each time, we’re brought back to this world where I’m in the back and you’re in the front
with the people you love and those who love you
a girl clinging to you after a game with your hands around her waist
your hand helping her zip up her dress, the zip goes up, your gaze goes down to look her in the eyes
and I’m outside the tent
in some deserved and self-imposed exile
I’m trapped in a burning building and you’re the only one who comes back to get me out
and then you leave me there on the curb and this is all I’m left with
It never helped the way I wanted it to—this constant shifting,
writing and rewriting,
the folding of these corners and pleats over and over
I’m still me and you’re still you
I wasn’t ever written to be loved by you
this is my role—I come, I make a mess, I show up at the last scene and fade away
there’s a girl on my arm and I’m not sure how she got there at all
a fold here, a fold there, and another
a crease after each until the folds tear and it all turns ugly
none of these are ever real
stop folding these over and over and ruining it
sullying it and staining it
I’m sorry I’m so desperate to find a world where I’m loved by you
no one will ever love me the way I want you to
and you'll never love me at all
And then, all at once, it’s another world again—
do the scene over: a new compartment on some train barreling down old tracks,
a new staircase, a new bathroom with sewer water puddling at our feet
there’s always you and then there’s me
the water's not red this time
we've lived a thousand lifetimes in skins that aren't ours
we’ll get there over and over before we come back again