The bag of nuts are squished
in my hands and I’m still
squashed with love for you. I
should’ve thrown them out
but I carried them here
symbolically because when we broke
up I bought them in a
sad attempt to be good. You
know what it’s like, how I latch
onto the next trendy rave,
spinning myself out because
I’m not made for such contemporary
fixations. I cast a shadow across
myself as to scratch participation
from this modernity that
feeds us preserved fruits
and nuts that’ll last
if I keep the bag sealed
for decades. And so,
I brought them here for us to share
as some prayer for surrender,
to take on the old with the new, to
let the battle of loving as deeply as I do
dissipate with some chewing between us. Though
as we drive past the places we used to haunt
in the same car we flew everywhere in
I can’t help but slip into a sentimental
déjà vu. When I say familiar things
like, when we pull over and walk to the creek
with the blaring sun burning me, stopping to grunt and shriek
to greet a meadow of cows, that I say they’re
my favourite animals with cheer abbreviating my joy for them with
industrial pause, grief
do you fall in love with me again the way I do you? Or when
you and I think about what’s changed ecologically here
we both break away from an accidental fantasy
wading in the cool of water
deciding the shift is a boulder between
one body of wet and the next, unwedged
spitting into each other. How
three years has made me a woman and you
writhing in new insecurities. To be alone now
thoughts separate, new bodies but
your mythic blue eyes are still so illuminating. We swim
naked and share forbidden exhalations
that I know are intended for us only. Because
even though it’s different now
and I wish it weren’t, though
it feels right, that it is just as it is,
I will always love you
and you will always love me.
You latch at something your neck
and back no longer conceals. The place where
you furrowed your pain is beginning
to smooth, you need rest. I know
things are likely to be this way
for some time, how you bruise yourself
grasping, squinting, unable to language the
vocabulary of you, so I read your body instead.
And though you might feel worn
you look good. Though you
struggle with new lessons
I think you manage exceptionally. Even if
doubt scares you with thoughts of eternal solitude,
babe, a heart made as pure as yours will
never sail seas stranded. I hold onto the
tiny memories we make and make. In a journal
you returned to me I see I’ve always been right,
from the very start of a forming us, there I wrote:
He’s one the greatest people I will know and ever love.
WRITTEN BY: P. ELDRIDGE
SISSY ANARCHY is a multifaceted platform dedicated to exploring the intersection of trans and queer identities with anarchist philosophies, most recently featured at the 60th Venice Art Biennale 2024 and named the leading indie press in London by AnOther Magazine.
Founded by P. Eldridge and Designed by Caitlin McLoughlin. For more more, follow on insta @SISSYANARCHY