body work

xiv: (i know now that) oranges are not the only fruit

**tw's: abuse, hospital**

you were the one who
looked at us & said
let's call this love—
neither sexual nor romantic
but still a little
more than just platonic.

i didn't know much about that. i
suppose i could have warned
you that you were all i had.
or could you tell just by looking at me?
i think you could tell just by looking at me.

you taught me that love
was stored in a half-orange moon.
that was cute. even though
neither of us ever fed the
other (a) half, that is what
we'd use. i would now say
love is in the cimborio of a church,
& you would love to hear that, you
would love.

& i know now
what i didn't know then—

that to translate a language
is to slowly kill it. & god, i would love to slowly kill / them. to latch onto other tongues in attempts to distance myself from myself, as if i would ever be
able to misunderstand loneliness. so,

i flick my tongue, desperate to
curl it up, cover up these words
& just leave it alone. i know
everyone else already has a home. but still, this yearning

to be back in my mother's eyes—
before i was born,
i was wonderful in her mind.
but instead i have these
pseudo-lovers with mothers
that were hurt too. &

when my own told me who i was,
it was nothing good so
i tried to learn dutch
courage & that got me remembering

that time you called my house &
wanted to bring me homemade brownies.
no-one had asked for me on the phone before.
mother was hurting me at that time. so made some excuses
& made me say goodbye,
as if there was any good in it.

& a few days later she asked if
i was a lesbian & did i want to be
a boy? see, i hadn't realised you'd called on valentines day. truly, i thought it a coincidence & wanted to laugh in her face. but mother was hurting me at the time.

it was not until i awoke in
the hospital that june when i
saw the card & letter from you.
i still remember the scorn in my
sister's voice, asking why a
valentines as if i wasn't dying
dying dying. i didn't understand.
i thought it was february again. &
we laughed about that & started
giving each other the wrong
cards on purpose,
or at least i did.

you never told me if you opened
that congrats it's a boy! card
in front of your loved ones
at christmas. sometimes i
like to think you did, &
smile at how you might
have explained it. but
most of the time, i hope you
didn't. that you would have kept
it our thing.

of course, now it's nothing.

there were no
more valentines
in the next few years. & for
your baptism, i brought the
right card. & all

those kind words of yours
are at my parent's house.
& i'm too scared to go get them.
but i'm not scared of the love. that's what is different now

we aren't even friends.
i am glad you saved yourself. 
see, i don't think winterson did,
it's kind of funny how i read
her book some years before we met.
i was too young, & didn't get it then.
that girl was christian too, but they said she chose wrong—unlike you. i think if
it would happen again

i would still fall
for it. i ate a few segments of a tangerine this week. i think i did it without thinking of you.
in your card, you apologised about the brownies. you know there was no need to.