With a Gleam in My Eye/ And an Almost/Airtight/Alibi

‘Laid one finger to the breeze
You can almost taste the action
On nights like these’

I don’t know what to do with the shape of the thought that there are people who can hear me, specifically me, by the rasp of my sloping, shambling walk and/or the sound of my sniffle or me clearing my throat. I am always handwaving away the actual fact that we have spent a decade plus building a real family with our hands and little else beyond the hunger to thrive together. It’s not a fancy family, with polycules or triads or maybe even squishes. Not even nonmonogamy In fact, we never talk about what it is outside of reifying our determination to continue on familying each other.

‘And I was headed in your direction
I’ve been waiting all day
I’ve been waiting all day’

I feel like I constantly agonize about our remove from Real Queer Life^TM; how dismissive am I about how queer our real life is though?

‘Lean toward the center divider
Feel the wind in my hair
Keep a light up in your window
I’m gonna be right there, I’m gonna be right there’

There is more here, about having been in love with the sound of [redacted] laughing from the warm heart of a house while some of us are outside it, smoking. About the rotating focus of care as these things are needed. About who cooks with who and who cannot share a kitchen at the same time. About washing dishes at Camp. But I am out of habit and scabbed over.

‘And we lay there together in the darkness
I can keep a secret if you can
Finishing one another’s sentences
Like a pair of identical twins
Your boyfriend’s out of town until tuesday’
– Mountain Goats