A Missouri afternoon hummed with barbecue,
Kansas City spilling jazz from every doorway.
We walked the brick-lined streets,
while our conference badges
swing like pendulums –
flimsy, plastic reminders
of the rooms of thinkers we had just left behind.
The panels spoke of method, of theory,
while others made absolutely no sense at all.
We walked around the city of fountains,
as the café windows mirrored our laughter.
The cold sweetness dissolving
like the hours we had once carried alone.
But we were speaking of everything else:
the lives we’d lived before
conference proposals, like the poems
tucked in between our dissertation notes,
little drafts of creative writing
we had abandoned for so long . . .
that now have become afterthoughts.
You quoted hooks,
I murmured Lorde.
And the city slid past us
like italicized thoughts in forward motion.
Two women,
writers, thinkers, and makers
who had come late to the fire
but found out that it was still burning,
for us.
I tasted the sugar.
Did you?
We spoke of writing,
together,
of work that might build between us –
Like the pages of passages we read in class.
I believed in that creation, too,
in you,
even though I did not see
the path slowly narrowing between us.
As the sun went down,
Kansas City was beginning to sleep all around us.
And still, our sentences
walked a bit further.
I was always, already writing,
trying to find a new sense
of agency and autonomy, of hope
in this new scholarly identity.
And somehow, you seemed to
recognize me as always, already there.
Who knew the power one plastic spoon
could hold, being passed back and forth,
as the ice cream sloped down the cup.
We passed storefronts and landmarks,
crossed sidewalks and streetcars
while the streets widened around us.
Each spoonful was
I don’t know
a maybe,
or maybe it was
that I was too open or curious,
maybe kind, and or [for]giving.
I watched you watch me,
as the borders of friendship stretched
and confused and contorted,
over the years in many ways.
Perhaps, you only saw
what my hope and dreams
could offer you.
Did you forget
how close you leaned in and smiled
you know the kind of smile
that makes collaboration feel like shelter?
Did you forget
how you asked me questions
that I could not answer,
or explain in ways that made sense?
Since, I carried that knowledge quietly –
the essays, projects, and writing almosts
that disappeared before the real work began.
Over and over again,
you withdrew without explanation,
leaving me in confusion and silence,
and doubt, and shame.
I foolishly believed that
certainty was once where you had been.
I’ve learned that
it’s dangerous to tug
at the promise of mutual becoming,
knowing the history that hung over us.
You returned only when it suited you,
surprised
by language soft enough to bend,
to make me doubt the distance.
How naive was I to cave, each time,
feeling ashamed and guilty . . .
How silly I’d react to unsaidness,
leaving me with questions
and unanswered texts . . .
I used to keep count, not score
when your intentions wavered constantly.
I used to dig deeper, and some more
beneath conversation and camaraderie.
As a writer, I know the game well
of reading between the lines.
I tried to have wise mind,
a critic’s mind,
I tried to be a good feminist,
a good friend.
But I mistook inconsistency for complexity,
and evasion for caution.
I resolved myself on this:
Maybe, I asked for too much.
I am no stranger to an empty room.
The sudden ache of dragging my own weight,
through the echoes of soft ruin.
I know I have made mistakes.
I have threaded through archives,
searching our past and present for proof.
Maybe there was a sentence I misread?
Maybe I [over]apologized for something
that I had said?
Maybe I should have barred the doors
of my intellect?
For someone who claims to be fluent in liberation,
you dressed your texts as judgments
so many unspoken offenses.
And then there was silence,
a cage you forged me into
so that I could carry shame for the both of us.
I’ve rehearsed apologies and assumptions,
I’ve questioned my actions and boundaries.
As I’ve learned, professional kinship
and the belief that I was being seen
came at much too high
a cost.
What kind of woman
can read and cite other women
who have found the violences of rhetoric,
while still making another woman
feel that kindness was weakness?
How easy it was, for you,
to twist innocence
into punishment and embarrassment.
So, I guess I want to say “thank you.”
Thank you,
for letting me hold that space alone.
Thank you,
for allowing me to feel foolish,
until I really understood
the quiet treasons of tenderness.
Thank you,
for showing me
that I did not have to burn others
just to prove to myself I was something,
that I am good.
Thank you,
for letting me starve and walk
to the edges of this story.
I have learned
that not all lines
need to be read aloud.
Yes, I will always be grateful
for the choice,
for the moment
that I walked away from you in that hotel elevator.
You know,
we shared an ice cream spoon, once.
I had just gotten my haircut,
super short, super tight
even though I was told not to.
That my impulsive decisions are usually
always, already dangerous and full of regret.
Shame,
as it turns out,
was never mine to keep.
Sometimes, I still walk
beside that memory,
just to remind myself
I know how to see my own way.
And now I know
that the harder way out
the way that turned my innocent ink
into blots and messes, taking more time
for me to sort out.
Well, I suppose that
was the one that ultimately
led me back to myself.
