01
I came home at ten in the morning
with the night still on me,
not metaphorically,
I mean in my hair,
in my socks,
in the way my jaw still held the room
like a dog holds something dead
because it does not know yet
where to put it.
02
I had been let in.
That happened.
Someone said,
Are you a dancer?
and for one second
my body stepped out ahead of me
and answered yes
without saying anything.
03
I don’t even know
if being in is what I want.
That feels important.
I wanted in for so long
and then there I was
inside it
and all I could think by morning was
I want my bed.
I want to be alone.
I want not to be watched
for one goddamn second.
04
⸻
05
Marco looked at me
and I felt almost-kiss.
That is the only way to say it.
Almost-kiss.
An impulse so fast
it had no chance
to become a decision.
06
Then he made me small.
07
Not by yelling.
Not even by speaking.
By the eyes.
By making sure I saw him
not say hi to me
in front of people
after I had.
By making me feel
uninvited to any conversation
while also making sure
I could feel
that I was being excluded.
08
That’s what small is.
Not gone.
Not forgotten.
Miniaturized on purpose.
Still visible.
Just denied scale.
09
⸻
10
And Elias.
God.
11
What humiliates me most
is how little I wanted.
Not romance.
Not a declaration.
I wanted him to come home with me.
I wanted the same softness
I have given him.
He knows I have done it for him.
12
Instead I had to kiss
some random guy
because I knew
if I refused badly
it could hurt his career in nightlife.
That is the part
that makes me sick.
I did it for him.
And I just wanted
to kiss him.
13
He was watching me
kiss this random guy
when all I wanted
was him on the couch,
the low hum of being together
without spectacle.
14
He hugged me after.
That’s true.
He held me.
That repaired the surface.
It did not repair
having to do it in the first place.
It did not repair
the sequence.
The body keeps sequence
like a bitch.
15
And then the other humiliation,
maybe the worst one in my body,
not even the objectively worst event,
just the one that made me feel
most stripped:
16
watching him
frantically try to find his coat
so he could leave
to go to another guy’s place
while I stood there
in socks
holding the keys to my own apartment
like a little station
on the way to someone else’s night.
17
I can feel it right now
even writing it.
Helpful, half-undressed by trust,
standing there with keys
while the person you want comfort from
is scrambling toward someone else.
18
⸻
19
Then the Uber.
And what I felt was not triumph.
It was:
I am so excited
to go to my bed
and be alone.
20
That’s all.
That was the dream.
No kingdom.
No ecstasy.
No little republic.
Just my own bed
with the door shut.
21
⸻
22
Then the text.
23
At first I didn’t care.
Of course, Nolan,
I will get your girlfriend her steamer.
That is who I am.
I do things.
I make things easy.
I do not make people beg
for what is theirs.
24
And then the table entered.
25
And immediately I knew
this was planned.
This was Jude and Nolan
out together
and I came up
not as a person
but as a problem to route around.
Not as someone loved once
but as a storage unit
with emotional weather.
26
The table is what hurts
because he has no room for it.
He lent it to me.
And I said repeatedly,
when we broke up,
just text me.
I’ll always get it to you.
Of course it’s yours.
27
I had already made generosity available.
I had already made the direct route safe.
So this was not about the table.
This was about avoiding me
while still using me.
28
And the ugliest sentence in my mind
was immediate:
I’m worthless
and just a disgusting person
how dare I even have these things
I deserve nothing.
29
I know that isn’t true.
I know it and still
my mind said it
with full conviction,
like a judge pounding wood.
30
⸻
31
A few weeks ago
he sent me a package
with no return label
and no note.
Just my keys,
a tote bag,
and a book.
32
I cried.
33
It felt like being translated
out of human language
into object transfer.
Like he could move matter
but not his mouth.
Like he could revoke access
without ever saying my name.
34
What do I lose
when he uses objects and friends
instead of his own mouth?
35
My sense of being a person
he loved.
36
That is the center.
37
⸻
38
Nolan made it urgent.
He said ten.
At 10:19 I said sure, now is good.
And then suddenly:
actually not now,
next week,
and also the table.
39
A jester in a court without spines.
40
I felt like the smart funny thing
rolled out
to keep everyone else comfortable
while they practiced cowardice
behind a curtain.
41
And then the steamer spilled
dirty water all over me
and the carpet.
42
Of course it did.
43
Even the appliance
was full of old water.
Even the handoff
could not happen cleanly.
I was trying
to return history
and it leaked all over me.
44
⸻
45
I want to say
fuck you
to Nolan.
46
I want to say to Jude:
I don’t know what the fuck
is wrong with you.
47
I want to say to Marco:
I was once a rose to you.
I’m not sure when I became a thorn.
48
I want to say to Elias:
I wish we could just embrace each other.
49
But the hardest sentence,
the one I am most afraid is true:
50
I’m a fool.
51
And I hate that sentence
because it arrives
after every man has taken
a different bite.
52
Marco made me feel small.
Elias made me feel
like a station on the way
to his real night.
Jude made me feel degradable.
Nolan made me feel
like an utter fool.
53
Four humiliations.
Four jurisdictions.
No unified theory.
54
⸻
55
And still.
56
I did text back:
Send me an address and a time,
and I’ll arrange
to have both delivered there.
57
That was me.
That was my spine.
That was my mouth
doing what theirs would not.
58
No response.
59
⸻
60
Let the record show
I was still a person
when everyone else
preferred logistics.
61
Let the record show
I was hot enough
for strangers to ask
if I was a dancer.
62
Let the record show
I came home wanting only my bed.
63
Let the record show
I still loved the wrong people
in the wrong ways
with real accuracy.
64
Let the record show
I cried at the package.
65
Let the record show
the table was never about the table.
66
Let the record show
I was discussed somewhere
without being addressed.
67
Let the record show
I was turned into an errand.
68
Let the record show
I am still here.
69
Not above it.
Not healed.
Not elegant.
Not resolved.
70
Here.
Humiliated in several directions.
Still beautiful.
Still furious.
Still a person.
Still not bending.