with my tender feelings writhing towards you as fat wet lizards on the grand gray rock by the river I feel so terribly exposed so terribly vulnerable so terribly embarrassed! Please do not look too closely at these lizards! How embarrassing that they have escaped me! Did no one teach me any manners? I am horribly humiliated, perhaps for all time but you don’t care you’re rolling in and away like a cyclone of dirty dishwater and instructing me in ten different ways to say sunset And i’m drawing them on your face/on the side of the rock/on the wind waving between us as you tear your fingers into the dark sand, clownlike, happy in your removal from reality Caterpillars creeping crawling over you, raspberries on the tips of my fingertips, we’re playing. I like you best when we’re playing. You soften at the edges. It doesn’t all have to be so life or death—A girl like me could start to wonder if you keep being so serious! well that’s what i would say if i was braver. But i needn’t wonder, because you’ve already told me that you could never love me, really, truthfully, cheerfully so and the words burnt through me like a cigarette through silk, a clean/dark/crisp hole left behind right through the middle of me and it left me so squeaky empty that now i can content myself with your company, with the oil slick movement of light on water, with you high and away from me and my back up against this lizard-scorching rock
Katherine Noble is a lesbian writer & lovebug based in richmond, virginia. she loves hosting poetry parties, playing pretend, and walking in the rain. her work has appeared in Beloved, bodily fluids, and riot ghoul, among others. you can find her most places on the internet @katesolnoble
