Were you in the Army
Noticing his high and tight, someone asked
No, he said
But my dad was

Was your dad in the Army
Noticing my veteran cap, someone asked
No, I said
But I was

If we sunk back to when the kings claimed divinity, 
lounging in gilded throne rooms, spraying perfume 
reddened by thorny roses and spilled wine, 
would you abandon your arrogance,
grasp the folly of your grandstanding?
            Would you fight them with me? 

            Because in solitude or the sea of an army, 
            I would charge against their scourge, 
            surge forward, a speck in a suit of armor,
            glinting like sunlit streams turned tsunamis, 
            would spread my offerings, my pretty sentences
            if my body fell and fainted in the face of crises. 

            Because it’s obvious how fragrances made heady 
            to hide the blood of forcibly pricked fingers
            and shattered sherry bottles should stand trial;
            still, my unbidden advice escaped my tongue
            at our last goodbye — barely a hug and
            briefly, a glance: “We are who we are,
                        but when will you become more?”

Master of my mind’s

They cluster into the retail stores like bees
at work–clustered in their family grounds
and calling to their cars like lost children:

“Where are you?” They scan the lot, squint
into the sun, arms laden with God-
knows-what: polo shirts sewn and steam-
pressed in some hidden-away factory
overseas, a diving watch–water safe, $20
on sale–its blue and glimmering 
artificial face like a vivid and synthetic shale. 

“I don’t know what to get for him,”
I hear one woman grouse by my car– “And so
I got him one of everything.” Imagine
a line of one hundred thousand bags
stretched out, a wealth of riches no one needs,
as if she had to justify her love
with all the wrapping left behind.

I want you to climb out of your brain

                            but
                                       bring echoes of every
                                                                              thing with
                                                                                              you

            because I love the colors the clouds make
                                                  when     they     dance     in
                                                                                       the
                                                                          shape
                                                                   of
                                                                       you.

I.

I hate having a body.

Headaches dull my days.

I want to rip out

all this facial hair.

I want real breasts.

I hate how rough

my legs look

because I can’t stop

scratching them.

I wish I was coordinated enough

to wear contacts.

I want to be thinner.

I want a body

that can be

whatever I want it to be

whenever.

I want to have  a pussy

without giving up my cock.

I want to be female

but maybe still

be male

on the odd occasion.

I thought

I was going to

look like

Julia Roberts

someday.

And someday isn’t coming.

II.

I love looking into the mirror

and seeing the girl

that I feel like.

I love the magic of makeup

even though I am

still learning it.

I love dancing in a dress.

I love my curly, feminine hair.

I love my girlish giggle.

I love my fashion sense.

I love wearing skirts.

I love listening to girly pop.

I love that feeling of rightness

when I’m in my own skin.

I love the stolen time

when I can be my true self.

I love who I am alone

and in safe spaces

without projections

or rejection

or judgment.

I love the girl

who has held on

for over a decade,

patiently waiting

for the life I am building her.

Two strangers locked in stares
Hearts entwined in golden thread
Love creeps through the window

feeling

1. a Saturday spent shopping for a just perfect vase
to put on the dinette to hold wildflowers just picked
from the yard, the barn, the creek, or the woods

2. calling around town to find a new primary care
physician who will take my overstretched insurance
because my doctor discovered I moved

3. my mother’s voice on the phone while I order
iced coffee from the little drive thru hut at the gas station
on the far end of town, the one I go to because
its a mom and pop shop and the barista knows my name

4. the sea breeze on my cheeks when I skip town
to get a break from all the labor and late nights 
sorting through saddles and trailers and long to do lists

5. removing you from all places you could find me,
the profiles and exercise pages and emergency
contacts lists, your existence a list of numbers
I’ll pretend I don’t have memorized

6. bidding my coworkers a goodnight and saying 
I’m heading home in reference to my trailer
rather than the state of Kentucky

7. falling asleep, wrapped up in sage green,
and staying still the whole night, not an inkling
of shifting, of tossing and turning, just me
and my dreams and the quiet

My chin rested on your knee, sat on the floor silently. You were to leave in 10 minutes. I think that was the last time we really loved. More specifically I really loved. It’s 4:37 AM, Saturday June 17th and I am wondering a few things. First, and most importantly, where do spiderwebs go? When we squish little bugs under our feet, under our fingers, with slippers and books and rolled up New Yorker magazines. Where do their homes go? The hours of commitment and line-work, spun from the marble-shaped bodies of 8-legged creeps. When I wondered this 2 hours ago, I tried to find an answer. I found out the following.

1. Spiders remake their webs all the time. Not for any particular reason, I think. Sometimes they’ll remake them hours, days, weeks later. I wonder if they’re restless like me. If they walk the lines of their silk webs with a constant discontent. If maybe they just yearn for a change of scenery that their small bodies cannot catch up with.
2. I get why that little girl in the cabin at the camp I work at cried when I crushed a daddy-long leg with a pink slipper and also why everyone else cheered. I now know why she sat in the floor next to it with inconsolable tears asking “What about his mommy? What if he had a girlfriend and babies and friends?”

So I’m still sitting here, wondering. What happens to spiderwebs? Where do spiderwebs go? What happened to the web we spun together? What happened after you left 10 minutes later and I rested in that same spot, your knee missing as my headrest? What happened to toothy smiles and walmart walks and shed tears and drunk phone calls? Where did our webs go?