Claire Cartwright

since starting college 

the first thing people from high school ask me when they haven’t seen me in years is who i’m dating now, they look at me with disappointment when my answer isn’t as entertaining as they want it to be, i hate how they think the most interesting thing about a woman is the man she holds on her arm. the only compliments my boyfriend gives me on his own accord are regarding my physical appearance. one of my closest friends tells me my most admirable trait is being pretty. boys ask me for pictures before they ask my name. only girl in the class small group, the guys don’t ask my opinion in the discussion, they don’t ask me anything [which i honestly prefer over the things they could ask and the things i have been asked], they try not to even look at me, whether that be fear of acknowledging their own shortcomings, or just simply fear of getting hard at 11:43am in Italian M100 cause that’s the only way they know how to view women (objection, your honor- speculation; sustained). beginning at age 14, my grandfather always told me you get cuter every time i see you and my last memory of him- just before the cancer finally sunk it’s teeth- was him smacking my ass as i walked past him in my grandmother’s kitchen, a month later i watch my uncle sob through a fabricated eulogy about how great a man he was, i never knew chris had such a gift for creative writing. a man boy from the rink i had been talking to for a month implied he wanted to fuck me, i told him he’s allowed to find me attractive but he’s not allowed to objectify me, he chose someone else, he swears the two are unrelated, and he never knew i baked him cookies even though i am not a baker. i consume hours of misogynistic media that the algorithm feeds me by spoonfuls, spoonfuls so heaping the mini mountains of suggestive captions about freshly legal girls spill over the utensil’s edge and cascade onto my bedroom floor, i open my mouth, salivating, i make a threshold of my jaw, i compost integrity, i accept my role as a mattress topper with bambi eyes, exactly the way i have learned to.   

Roommates

what i’ve learned about life 

is when you open your door to emotion 

the only guests who never leave are love and grief.  

you watch them share meals and play cards.  

they argue over tv channels and christmas lights. 

they discuss how to spend a thursday evening 

and if april is too soon to go to the lake. 

they look out the kitchen window 

and complain about the grass being too tall. 

they host parties in your dining room 

and use your china to serve your groceries.  

they make your house their fortress.  

they forget what life was like before crossing your threshold. 

they never go back.  

and you can ask them to leave.  

you can beg on both desperate knees, 

beg till your skin is a bloody ombre palette. 

you can try and make them want to go away; 

you can cancel the mediacom subscription. 

you can rip off their favorite wallpaper, 

make it’s crisp sound your new favorite chorus.  

you can destroy the flowers they planted, uproot the soil carpet.  

you can slam the door and change the locks. 

you can throw their belongings in the yard, 

stack that shit like every reason you had for leaving him. 

you can sit on the porch and light a gas-station cigarette, 

and wait for the world to singe. 

and you can tell yourself  

you were successful. 

you can distract yourself with work 

or by running errands  

or by clinking glasses with friends from high school. 

but when you come home, 

and you always come home, 

after you park your car, 

and turn the key in the front door, 

those not-so-special guests will be waiting for you, 

cross-legged, clasp-handed  

in the living room armchairs.  

you learn to live with them.  

you learn to dodge the laundry piles 

they leave on the bathroom floor.  

you grow accustomed to washing every dish  

they left in the kitchen sink.  

sometimes they’ll be dormant for days  

and you forget you don’t live alone. 

sometimes they’re twin insomniacs 

and you pretend to not mind every tv and radio in the house 

simultaneously playing at max volume in the middle of the night,  

you know what, i like hearing about the new taylor swift album 

and the latest school shooting at the same time while i try to sleep,  

it keeps me a well-rounded, well-educated individual, thank you! 

you pick up and take out their trash. 

you answer their phone calls. 

you make all their meals. 

you accept this as your new life.  

you can dream about how simple life was. 

you can write a hundred poems  

about how it felt to be 18. 

you can fantasize about disappearing without a trace, 

romanticize the idea of leaving 

every scrap of yourself behind, 

cutting every tie that holds you 

to this god-forsaken house. 

but you will remember, too, 

how much color the world used to lack. 

how the desaturated hills rolled for miles to nowhere. 

how the haze used to hold onto anything  

it could wrap its thumb around. 

how every dog only lived to die, 

and every person had dirt-covered hands  

and rotten eyes. 

life may not be brighter, but it’s fuller; 

i may not be yours, but you will always be mine. 

so i’ll grieve you, my dear, till i return to ash. 

till i am a fossilized ghost. 

till my bones become as brittle as my breathing heart. 

till i dissolve into the soil and am indistinguishable from compost. 

when my knuckles lose fight. 

when my poems run out of metaphors.  

i’ll grieve you long past they tell me i’m allowed to. 

i'll grieve you until i am nothing, and then some. 

for you are the only lie i’ll die believing, 

for you will always be my center of gravity, 

for my love can never be evicted.  

i will cook dinner for my love, 

i will set the table for my grief, 

and we will dine with compassion.  

we will keep the door open, 

and the porch light will always stay on, 

to guide my baby 

back home. 

Good News

I carry my new beginnings by the armload 

I've acquired quite the collection 

really 

an abundance of heartbreak and excitement and rejection and victory and exhaustion and 

growth 

I stack them against my torso and they try to lean and spill  

but I'm careful  

not to drop any of them, each one just as important as the rest 

If any one were to shatter  

I’d never forgive myself 

I carry these possessions with me as I walk through the streets 

It's December and every house  

on this block  

apparently has some “tis the season” pact 

I'm not looking for anything when I look through the windows 

of these dazzling estates 

houses full of light like the electricity runs on glee 

I see the gatherings  

of friends and loved ones and lovers  

How present they are with each other 

I see how their lips flatten and expand when they smile and how their eyes widen and glow like embers when they embrace 

How they talk not just with their hands but with their whole being 

A woman with dark hair and a red sweater 

drinking white wine  

folds in half and slaps her knee while smiling and mouths something without breaking eye contact with a woman 

in a white button-up who probably  

made some sort of relatable joke about the problems of adulthood like  

sweeping or breathing  

or how no one uses real polaroids anymore or maybe she gave away the secret ingredient to the clam chowder  

or whatever small talk real adults 

discuss when catching up at the once-a-year family function 

I see  

a woman who has to be someone’s aunt  

walking around trying to look busy and micromanage every conversation with her intuitive intrusive questions  

“How are your grades in school?  

Are you pregnant? No? Oh, so you just look like that?  

Do you have a boyfriend yet? Oh, you date girls now? Well, that explains a lot,  

of course it’d be Sara’s daughter who’s a lesbian. 

Now, don't give me that look! 

Hey now, I fully support gay marriage as long as they don't force me to condone their lifestyle!”  

I see how the mothers look at their children  

and how the children never notice  

because they're too busy sledding down the stairs or antagonizing a man in a grey turtle neck  

with wire-rimmed glasses  

or chasing a tiny,  

short-haired dog covered in gift bows and how the mothers, desperate for help, 

look around for their husbands  

who are all outside  

smoking cigars and talking about  

“booming business” or “boomers in business” or something like that,  

too high on privilege to care about anything as trivial as eggnog or their wife’s emotions 

Arms and heart getting heavier now  

I am mesmerized through blurry eyes 

Yes, I have a family and yes, I have (too many) friends, and no, I don’t need a 6’2 physical trainer to tell me I’m beautiful or special or funny or  

whatever else he thinks will get me to sleep with him 

yet  

I still find myself searching for someone to share these trinkets with 

Someone to run to  

immediately when I am eager to share good news 

I've never been so lonely.