The adage is that literature and art are all

about sex and death, but I didn’t come

to watch people die. A lack of sexual desire

doesn’t mean I don’t comprehend passion.

I’ve read Donne. I’ve seen St. Teresa’s Ecstasy.

I know of the three-person God who battered

both their hearts. Kurt Schwitters consciously broke

from all previous traditions by prioritizing

art objects over naturalistic paintings.

As did many of the avant-garde.

He stopped replicating
the world in order to bring three-dimensional

corporeality onto the canvas, and saw everything

as forces he could pit against each other.

His art is a sliver of the world, isolated
in its congealing as it happened. Any chaos

transpired by chance, not intent. We were like this too.

We fought over directions to Empire Cafe

(Yeah, I know, I’ve driven by there a million times.

Fuck. You made me forget what I was going to say.)

which meant we were really fighting
about whether you would stay, if you could pretend

to be happy with me. Melancholic
is how Margot described me that night, a word

that’s supposedly the default affect of queer love.

At least that’s what 19th century literature,

film and television from the 80’s and 90’s,
and my queer theorist former neighbor all tell me.

Maybe melancholy was the wrong word for us.

Maybe gay was always the wrong word.

Or maybe over time gay rotted out
of the fruit basket of words for happiness.

Over time I rotted out
of the word gay. Did you ever think so

at home when your body called and pulled

at my heart in an unspoken whisper. Come,

join me in bed. Eventually I would.

It just took a while.

from “Decorporeal”

made you lose track of the months,

which made me think about the distance

you were building between us, longer hours

with your office door closed.

You stopped kissing me

when I got home. Don’t be so cold.

Summer didn’t end so much

as it flattened like water.

Once, we’d grab each other’s hands

and blow into them when we felt

the crisp brush of autumn. Before then

I never saw another body

as an extension of pleasure (an object).

I never saw an object as a person, never

called my car by a name which my friend

Gwen thought was weird. We were

in college. Made-out

at a party (I was bisexual then) continued

to the back of her car (Stephanie). Later

I told her I don’t know, the space

of my car just feels like an extension of me.

I know what everyone’s thinking, and yes,

phenomenology is my astral sign.