graphic by kayleigh woltal
This memory tastes of watered down diet Coke (sorry, is diet Pepsi okay?)
and jalapeño poppers from the local student bar.
Some of us are drinking for the sake of it,
a special occasion lends itself to such things.
Tables are dragged and pulled together and
We’re all sitting with knees knocking against each other.
This chaotic closeness is welcomed, embraced, wanted.
We pull up chairs, scoot down, shift plates, making room.
There’s more stories and laughter to share.
We sing our made-up eulogies, all dressed in black
(and blue, you get to choose).
I recite a poem, silly, and short, (and full of love)
Rhyming your name with any word that works.
Some of us are saying goodbye to a person we never knew,
Others have seen the shifting, the changing, the becoming of you.
We make a home out of this half-empty student bar.
(who else would throw a party at 2 in the afternoon but us?)
We lay our worries to rest here.
(tucked in with a kiss on the forehead).
Hands and arms lay easily over the tables,
Familiar palms meet with one another,
As we talk about our futures
(my god how we have one, a future I mean).
That’s the whole point I think,
Musing about the stories we will tell and
The people we will love, the lives we will build ,
About the people we will become, with all of our choices,
How, despite ourselves, we will carve out a space and place.
And all of those voices, side conversations,
And bursts of laughter, a tangled web of connection
Amongst all of us, it lives in my chest.
It’s a feeling I am always looking for and I find that
It exists in our loving partners, in the people we choose.
It exists in roundabout places, it exists at midnight
And in long concert lines and fake funerals
And gender reveal parties for ourselves at twenty-something years old
(and to no one’s surprise, decisively, it is a boy)
And it exists in a sh*tty student bar at 2 in the afternoon.
I think it’s safe to say I will never tire
Of drinking water-down diet cokes (sorry, pepsi).