Ant Poem

Curled against the smooth shape of your body

one month after we break up

It feels so comfortable and good and I wonder why we had to

end things.

I see an ant carrying more than its body weight and I remember that

was how I felt most of the time when we were together.

That night I brought you home after reading

the sex poem about you at the Queer open mic

and I made you come so hard you left a sweat stain in the shape of

your body on my bed,

we had to change the sheets before we went to sleep

and in the morning you asked me to breakfast

and over crepes you asked me if I thought I had made a mistake

breaking up with you.

Looking over my decaf latte, my heart lurched a little into my throat

and as I gulped it down I said “No.”

“Do you mean because of that poem I wrote?”

and you nodded, “Yeah.”

I said no again, and then I told you about the ant, carrying more

than its share of the weight,

and you sighed that heavy sigh

and even though I could not see your eyes behind your sunglasses

I believed that your sigh breathed the relief that I felt.

You put your hand so kindly, so softly on my upper arm and you said,

“I felt like that too.”

And then it was my turn to sigh a heavy breath of release.

Then you said “That’s why in that letter I wrote you

I said that line- ‘We tried. Goddamn Did we try.’”

And then we both just sat there

nodding at each other

in mutual

understanding.

Until I started to cry.

One big, movie-style tear, just rolling down my face, slowly.

You joked, “Are those happy tears?”

And I shook my head no,

and said, “These are because I am feeling again

just how HEAVY that felt and how HEAVY our relationship was.

I weighed too much. You needed so much

and I am sorry. I’m sorry that I needed more but I did.”

And you said, “I’m sorry too.”

And I chuckled at how, one month later we are still sleeping

together and we’re still spending hours processing

that we’re still sleeping together--

“Is this okay for you/do you have expectations/I don’t have expectations/but I want to be

sure that I don’t start to get them by accident/I mean by default/I mean we are lesbians after all,”

And everyone knows how much we like to process shit

and how women can’t have sex with no strings

and how our emotions, tied up with the moons and the tides

can’t ever just be simple. And I’m okay with that.

Because we’re on the same page.

Maybe two sides of the same coin.

And I still fucking love you

and you can’t just turn that shit off.