July

Heartbreak is so strange. At first it's this unstoppable hurt and you sit on couches, staring at nothing. You feel numb until you talk about it and then you cry until you're done. You buy another beer and sit back down again. That's the beginning.

For me, at first, I felt nothing. Kinda like a hollow buzz with some relief and disbelief. I said, you're heartbroken, don't try and do anything, just be broken. But I wasn't feeling anything. So I baked. Muffins and bread and cookies, anything to put my hands deep in dough and churn out something nourishing and time consuming. More salt, more sugar, more cinnamon.

But it took the voices of a few to crack what I was feeling. I had said, I'm okay, it's sad, but I'm okay. But then I heard her voice and she said, I'm proud of you. And I broke. I sobbed for what had been, what wouldn't be, and what was now.

Then I felt like this rotting bird had moved into my chest. I distracted myself with friends and parties and drinks, another lover. But when that was gone and it got quiet again, I noticed. The bird. That sick feeling. Where I just shuddered and said, this sucks, this blows, I don't want this. Heartbreak, I can't believe it's in me.

I had said, if we break each other's hearts, if we break up, I'm putting everything in a box (time capsule) and I'm hiding it away because I can't stand to look at the mark of love all over me. Now I'm looking at empty boxes, all around my room. And things, my things, your things. You marked me with your things.

Heartbreak is strange. I do what I've always done. I see friends, I ride my bike, I feel uncomfortable sometimes and welcomed other times. I love my family and the sun and the smell of certain flowers. But then, all of a sudden, it rushes back in. I'm hurting. I'm like me, normal me, but heartbroken. A small, significant fact.

love song for those that came before you

Kendra

From between the barbed wire fences of
platinum plastic barbie hair
tattered glittered fairy wands
pink and blue
red and blue
next door neighbors
my mom knew your mom
(got thrown through a window)


Zoya

This was before things got weird.
Or maybe they already were,
but this was when that sugar high kool aid asphalt energy
propelled us down melting summer streets
into mischief or magic.
When we played pick your favorite mythological creature and
you were my first friend in urbana
your name, my name
all we wanted to do was become artists or unicorns.
I grew up too fast
and you just kept getting
more and more beautiful.

Jenn

There are moments whose strength
still sings in me now.

Her elegant fingers
the right angle of her elbow
bisecting
the cast light of street lamps

her exhale in the night air.

I wanted to run my tongue
across her inguinal ligament
wrap my hands around the slightness of her waist.

But she kept shrinking into
the background of other boys
disappearing into the liquor
waiting for her parents to destroy her.

We both looked for our light in others' eyes.

We both learned how to carry our stories
inside our skeletons.

But she is mine
and hers

were much older.

My grandmother, what she said, she wrote it down, she said, a power of women.

Ok. Ok. Ok. Don't freak out.

See, here's the thing. You set this goal. You said, "Okay, here's the thing: we're going to live beautiful and we're going to live free and through this, we're going to fix things up." Because there's no reason to live in fear or famine or friendless. We just gotta fix it up, give it back better, not broken. Then later, you grew up a little and you thought, okay, well, okay, how? You said, I know! It's not just about building better communities, we gotta build better homes (we can't just fix broken systems, even, we have to fix broken hearts.) So, let's start square one, how'd we get here, then? Out of somebody's body, out of a tunnel of light, into hands and arms and breasts, into the infinite network of humanity and trees.

You said, so, who's catching babies, then?

And it wasn't new. No, it was old, so old, old even in your life. For that's who your mama was. Just as her mother had crafted poetry and her mother had crafted heartbreak, so your mother crafted babies (poetryheartbreak.) No, wait, that's not all I meant. Your mother crafted support. That's what she was making. Your mama taught support and solidarity the way some kids are taught their p's and q's. The buddy system, the golden rule, the ring of truth, and above all, keep your sense of humor. Your midwifery training started early.

And now?

And now you're counting down. June 20th means less than 2 months and you're on your way. Just had to go and put your money where your mouth is. That famed mother, well known from stories and songs, she said, "don't spin your wheels, keep your eyes on the prize, do your work." So you stayed up late, you got up early, put your hands right there, deep in the thick of it, thin layers of latex the only thing standing between you and new life. And slowly, steadily, moved closer to the ultimate goal, which unbeknownst to you had become

working deep magic, holding space for deep beauty
and joy and bliss.

A Blessing
James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

Everything but you is stale.

My heart was filled with too many questions--like are timelords born as babies and will we be in love forever--that I forgot to ask myself what it was I truly wanted. I had grown used to seeing myself like the seedlet of a milkweed pod, tossed to and fro between happy chance and miserable fate. I kept finding myself places, unsure of the reasoning that had led me there, and confused because I thought I had been meticulously matriculating. Sometimes you are meticulous and the results are still surprising.

I had this friend once who said that life is not about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself. I thought this meant destiny. But part of me always believed that destiny was something you picked up off the floor and took home with you. You didn't create a destiny, you just realized you had it. It is like blowing into a fan. You exhale and the world exhales right back at you and though you feel the force of it, you cannot see its projection and it is hard to catch your breath. We are created by what we decide to do.

So when I fell in love with you, I felt the thick stir pot of creation mixing everything up. When asked how I was doing, I said, "All the left heels of my shoes have fallen off and I've recently learned that I am held together by stars." I was drawn to you like a siren song and though I saw those rocks, I wouldn't have steered myself away even if I had wanted to. Can you imagine how confusing this was? I don't believe in starcrossed lovers. I don't believe in everlasting love. I believe in friendship and good sense. I believe in relativism and the unbridled beauty of resistive female friendships.

Cowgirl interlude:
We were those who wanted to hear our hoof beats pound familiar streets into wilderness and our shouts turn mist into cumulonimbi. We were taught that the buddy system would protect us from strangers and it was possible to know things by learning their names. They wouldn't teach us how to build fires, only how to ask for money. Sadness was something we understood, and passion, but not reproductive anatomy. Books were tailored to our exploration of both. As we grew, we came away from and into our own power. We began to see that our power lived in relation to other powers and began to take witness of the intersections in which we lived. We grew distrustful and we nurtured solidarity. Each of us, everyone of us, learned a new language.

It is with an unsure happiness that I have discovered you are a part of me. With you, I have drunk deep of beauty and of grief. I have been unmade by you and yet still I feel myself made more. With you, I feel the lick of oceans upon deserts and the echoes of some tolling bell. Together, we have tossed a coin and slowly does it somersault above us, not yet landed, not yet home.