you have ten black ice air fresheners and a picture of us hanging from your rearview mirror. zoom in on the photo booth slip – “lights camera action!” is printed boldly on the bottom and our faces are pressed together smiling. then we’re being silly. and in the last frame, all i can see is your celestial smile as i kiss your cheek. this picture was taken right after the 80’s lesbian gore muscle mommy movie we watched and you have yet to stop thinking about it. this new addition to your bruised and beaten car is in my mind’s eyes every frame while we drive through lewis county. us, two black lesbians passing a magenta dab pen back and forth as you joke that this feels exactly like a horror movie. i say it feels like brokeback mountain. (you always smile, you always scoff, you always laugh. i might be falling in love with you.)
here, the blue sky unhinges its jaw for us
my invitation must’ve gotten lost
i know if i wasn’t with you
i’d float away back to where i came from
i don’t know where that is
but i don’t belong here
we drive on route 507’s concrete tongue
i expect it to swallow us whole any second
but would i mind being killed in a place like this?
a sea of green behind me
a field of blue above me
a lover beside me
you share the same smile as the sky
absolute and alive
it’s that smile that says
“this is the street i got called the n-word on”
the teeth in the grin of this town,
i can see the fangs
the sound of your voice, synonymous to wind in evergreen trees, brings me back to you. “do you think one day, when your mom meets me she’ll think i’m super west coast and hate me?” the question is laughed out the side of your crooked smile. my eyes crinkle with a cackle, “oh my god, shut up! she won’t hate you… but she will think you’re super west coast. there’s just something about you,” i stop. how come i never noticed your skin glows the same way grass turns golden in the sunlight? you blink at me, angelic and curious, “i can’t put my finger on it…” i finish and tear my eyes from your direction because if i kept looking, i’d never stop.
you tell me that i stare at you so much, you’ve learned to feel my gaze in your peripheral. we watch portrait of a lady on fire and agree that i’m marianne and you’re héloïse. darling, please understand that im a moth to your flame, or rather a poet to your muse. yes, an eager insect, all yours, stupid with devotion. and everyone can see it, everyone can smell the stink of love on me. i’m sorry i don’t make us more inconspicuous.
we are a puzzle the locals are trying to solve
there, in the arcade, we topple each other in giggles
while you struggle to open hand sanitizer
you and your plum acrylics flash me a pout
there, in the hot breath of nuclear families on my neck
as i open the bottle for you, in the prayers for invisibility
that our coordinated sunset colored outfits won’t allow
there, in the gas station, with the drivers door open
i slide my credit card in your hands
and coo, “let me take care of you”
there, in the taste of pennies on my lips
while the white man in front of us stares
in the way i’m always ready for a fight
there, in the roller rink, i sit on a bench
while you float and glide in a blur of lavender
im mystified at your coordination
there, in the sweetness of our gazes that become opaque
in the swivel of multiple heads between us
in the fact i’ve never felt so alone, so in love
so i look at the garden of eve outside my window instead. i’ve heard that this is “god’s country.” all horse tail flicks and little ponds with little docks that little families take care of. wine colored vintage trucks that i always say are “cunty” and “dykeish” and “very bella swan.” piles of chopped evergreens and piles of sky. wild tufts of grass grow out of the ground like little curly heads. i, of course, can only think what if we miss our turn and have to back out in someone’s driveway and are shot. or, the car breaks down and we’re stuck here and we’re shot. or, what if, stay with me, we’re shot. i concentrate on the top of the terrain and think about touching the tippiest top pine needle of the tallest evergreen tree. oh, to be on top of the world with you. no one would hurt us up there.
downtown centralia is quiet
the unspoken silence of our distance
we, parallel lines, itch to hold each others pinkies
queer love is resistance, i tell myself
and what am i if not radical?
we become perpendicular and liberated
(i brush my shoulder against yours)
“that” you point to a little brick building, “is owned by nazis”
everything buzzes and is tinted red
i try not to touch you again
we zip by trump 2024 posters and american flags and we laugh, what else is there to do? the air thickens while i wonder how many love stories have been lost to this land. how many initials have been carved and abandoned, how many secret kisses shared, how many hands held hidden. the same sun that shines on us has shined on all those that came before us and i now know these hands are immortal. here, i think in poems that have been written before. there they are, nestled between the waves of rolling hills and the sticky sweet on the lone evergreen tree. there, in the strands of smoke that tickle my nose and the pang in my heart while i watch you mumble along to tupac songs. there, on top of the gear shift, you lay your hand palm up, fingers outstretched like rays of sunshine, like a proposal. the song of growing lavender and hyacinth and violets crescendos around me. i liberate myself for them. my hand answers yes.
