Halloween, 2012

Pumpkin guts coat the sidewalk
With an orange film
And leaves,
Dry as old bones,
Stand upright in the cracks
Like small trees
From an airplane window
Before landing,
We walk in the street instead
Because my boots are brand new
And your sneakers are white
And, chances are,
We already have
Sugary fruit punch
That Sam spiked with bad vodka
Stuck to our soles alongside
Dog shit and
Chocolate bar shavings
So pumpkin guts will only make things
Stickier
Than they already are
For you and I.

We walk with our arms
Straight down
And our hands hidden
Underneath too-long sleeves,
I feel your fingertips
Graze mine,

You’re dressed as the green M&M
And I am a skeleton,
You sniffle
And ask me where I wanna go
I shrug and you
Tell me that your dad’s house
Is empty
And that he went to his country home
In Upstate New York
To celebrate Halloween
With his new family,
I nod.

We lay on his futon
That’s folded out into
A lumpy guest bed
And you scroll through pictures
Of your half-sister
Dressed as a bumble-bee,
Sitting on the ground
Of a house that looks like it
Has really high ceilings,

You click your phone off
And tell me that your dad is an idiot
And you take off your jacket
And ask me if my hands are still cold,
They’re not,
But you hold them anyway
And place them on your chest
And climb on top of me
And close your eyes
While I try not to get my
Poorly done skeleton makeup
On your M&M shirt
That your mom made
With puffy paint
For the party tonight,

Your hips sway
Slowly
Like a lake preparing
For a wild storm
And you press your mouth
Hard on my neck,
I tell you not to leave a mark
And you smile
And press harder
And I feel my heart drop six floors
And collide with my stomach
On the way down
Because we both know
That our throats will close up
And our eyes will fall out
If we walk out of your dad’s house
Bruised and
Sweating
And someone confronts us
About what happened,

It’s not that I want you to stop
It’s that you have to
Because I don’t want to be crucified
On the football field
At the pep rally on Monday
And sometimes
When I think too long about being a dyke
I imagine my blood
Rushing through the ground floor locker bay
Like that one part in
The Shining.

The storm comes
In a heavy sheet
And leaves lazily
With cement
Glued to the inside
Of its shoes,
Leaving the air humid
As you put your jacket back on.

I gulp water
From the faucet in the bathroom
And inspect my neck
For evidence,
We fold the bed back up
Into a couch
Silently
And walk back outside,
Dodging pumpkin guts
As we walk home,

Three feet apart,

Our fingers curled into fists.