For Billy
(for the poetry of his friendship)
Acknowledgments
I have been graced with so many possibilities, it is impossible for me to thank everyone who's helped shine the way to this book. Once again, it started as a valentine to my friends. And once again, it belongs to them and my wonderful family, particularly my amazing parents.
Many people helped me as I made my way through these pages. Billy Merrell, Eireann Corrigan, Jinny Wolff, and Dar Williams continue to inspire me with their words and music. Dan Poblocki, Ed Spade, Laura Heston, Michael Renehan, Nico Medina, Brian Selznick, David Serlin, Joe Monti, Cary Retlin, Jennifer Bodner, David Leventhal, Mike Rothman, and Patrick Flanery were all instrumental during the drafting of these lines. Everyone at Knopf has been a dream to work with, especially Amy Ehrenreich, Melody Meyer, and Melissa Nelson. And my colleagues and writers at Scholastic still teach me how to do it, every day.
Without Nancy Mercado, this book would have never begun. Thank you for lighting the first match.
Nancy Hinkel makes me the luckiest guy on the Lower East Side. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
The word “unlonely” comes to me from Eddie de Oliveira's fantastic novel Lucky. “Possibility” was finished just hours after the commitment ceremony of my friends Jen Corn and Roo Cline. I hope it contains at least some of the glory of that day.
one
Daniel
Mary
Diana
Megan
smoking
i've never smoked a cigarette with anyone but jed.
senior year, driver's licenses,
our town is so many miles
with nowhere to go.
nowhere but the woods,
where leaves block out the haze of the city
blocking out the stars.
we pass the cigarette hand to hand, and
somehow i can see the trail of smoke in the
darkness. the way i can see jed's eyes
even when there isn't any light.
it would never have occurred to me to smoke.
but one day we're at the 7-11 and jed says buy a pack.
we have been in the 7-11 for twenty minutes
reading newsprint about bat boy and the
shocking! gay! love! affair! of someone
in hollywood, and jed jokes that if our local
paper was like that, we'd certainly be
headline news.
i have never wanted to be a cowboy
but i ask for marlboros anyway.
i have to prove myself
with the photo that doesn't really look like me,
only a department of motor vehicles version.
i don't know whether to smile
and it shows. i thank the shopguy like
he's delivered the cigarettes to my door.
it's only when we're back in the car that
jed asks me if i got matches.
I am so new at this.
jed is not a smoker
but he's smoked.
i am not a smoker
and i have never smoked.
i light matches for candles
for sitting in my room and wanting
a flicker of life, a flicker of mood.
the smoke i've known is
vanilla scented.
i think he will laugh but instead
he tells me he loves the way i am.
hearing those words is like
being handed flowers. we walk
to the woods and find the one bench,
our hidden observation post.
as we sit on the carved names of other discoverers
he takes the cellophane from the pack,
smoothes it between his fingers,
and folds it into a ring.
i open the cardboard,
pull out a cigarette, slightly amazed
at how light it is. like a piece of chalk
made of paper.
jed and i don't have much in common.
he is much stronger than i think i am. he is
mischievous, outgoing, ready to soar
through clouds while i often feel
like the cloud itself. we are a strange pair
and we love that. we've been going
to school together since sixth grade
but we didn't really meet until last year's art class.
we had both drawn escher patterns on our jeans.
do you like magritte? he asked
and at first i didn't really know jed was
although i was sure he knew that i was
but gradually we both knew
and we knew.
i hold the cigarette like i'm in a black-and-white movie.
but when jed lights the match, it spreads to color,
his skin in the campfire light, the spark of his eyes
as he leans in to me. when the match touches,
he says, breathe it in. i wait for the glow,
the yellow smoldering to orange. i wait
and then i inhale. one long drag as jed shakes off
i take it in too long, too fast. my body says not yet
and pushes the smoke back out in a cough. i feel
foolish, but jed smiles and says i'm doing fine,
better than he did. he takes the cigarette
from my hand, brings the orange deeper, then
hands it back to me and says try again.
my parents are okay with me being gay
but they would kill me if they saw me with
a cigarette. which makes sense, in a way.
my friend pete would also have something
to say. he says his body is a temple, and i think
that's the problem with the two of us lately. i don't want
my body to be a temple. i don't want it to be
worshiped or congregated. pete is an athlete
and my next door neighbor and we've known
each other so long that we can talk about anything
except jed. or what pete calls
that whole thing.
the second breath works. the smoke
fills my air. it doesn't feel good or bad
just a buzz of different. we sit down and pass it
back and forth. it is hard for us to be alone
between school and our friends and our families
and his track practice and my literary magazine.
so this pause is heaven, feeling entirely
open. we talk and sit close and the only
time that passes is the ash that falls.
i have never had anybody talk to me like this.
this is not a flirty sixth-grade phone call or
bantering with friends or words passed in a note.
i feel that if my soul could talk it would
talk like this.
i am willing to smoke the cigarette until
it disappears. jed tells me when it's time to stop.
i reach into the pack for another but jed
says one is enough. anyone can do more,
but it will be our thing to do just one.
we talk until our voices are tired
and then we talk about what we're doing
tomorrow. when i get home, the pack safely hidden
in the trunk of my car, i am surprised
to find that my hand still smells like smoke.
i know i should wash it, hide it too, but
the scent makes me think of him.
so i let it linger.
it becomes one of our rituals. like
skipping sixth period study hall together
like signing our notes with truth beauty freedom love.
these things let us know how we fit
with each other, even if we aren't sure
how we fit with everybody else.
i look at guys like pete and sometimes feel
lost. he works out for two and a half hours a day.
he has this perfection he wants to be.
he travels in groups and looks so at ease.
even though i know him well enough
to know he gets nervous and tries
too hard, i still look at him sometimes and
think that's the way jed and i should be.
when i am with jed, though, i don't
care. we head to the soccer field for
our second cigarette. beyond the goals,
far from the school. we don't hold hands
until we're out of view, but that gives it
more of a charge. we can still hear people's
voices, but they can't hear ours. we talk
about growing up, about college. jed
talks about the foreseeable future and
how little there is that we can foresee.
which gives the present more of a charge.
inhaling deeply, i am aware that something
touching my lips has just touched
his. so uncomplicated.
i can't pretend to know
how to smoke. i just do it.
i can't pretend to know
what love is. it just is.
because it is senior year i have begun to see things
as potential absences. the things i love will become
the things i'll miss. i don't know how to use this
negative sight. when jed and i are playful i feel very
young. when jed and i are serious i feel
older, like how I feel when I'm wearing a suit.
when i was twelve, smoking a cigarette would have
made me feel old. when i am forty, maybe smoking
will make me feel young. but right now all it makes me
feel is that i am with jed and we are in the same place
pete comes over to do homework later that night
and he tells me my shirt smells like a concert and asks me
if i went to see a band without him. i tell him
i barely recognize his body from all the working out and he takes it
as a compliment. tells me how much he's lifting and how much more
he'd like it to be. i have known him since we were small enough
to fit in a kiddie pool. i have heard about the girls
he's made out with and he's heard about all the girls
i didn't quite. back before i thought of friendship in terms of love,
i would've never said we loved each other. and now
that i think of friendship in terms of love,
i'm still not sure.
the first time jed asked me on a date i almost
cried. this was in the middle of junior year. having
someone think of me that way was like discovering
a new window in the room i'd lived in all my life.
in my english notebook, i had cataloged his graces
while in his mind he had detailed my kindnesses,
dreamed about saying things i dreamed of hearing.
he had been seeing someone and i had seen a lot of people
from afar. we realized the only thing separating us
was air. we walked through it with simple words.
we knew that all we had to do was tell two people
for the whole school to know. so we told two people
and were a little surprised when nothing happened
except our surprise. we were okay, i think, because
we kept to ourselves. which was exactly where
we wanted to be.
i drive around and smile when i think of the cigarettes
in the trunk. one time my mother needs to borrow the car
and i spend the whole day nervous that she'll crush them
with her groceries, discover them and turn on me
with questions. jed teases me all day and then
when we get the car back he insists there's a cigarette
missing, that my mother has stolen one from us on the sly.
i've lost count—are we on seven or eight?—it
no longer matters. we sit on our bench and listen for owls
and i feel like i am at home in the world.
we make it to the last cigarette, proud
of ourselves for sticking to our plan. it is a sunday night,
television hour, and we are fugitives
in the park after sundown. i light the match this time
as jed inhales. and i, who have never thought
in terms of a life, think to myself that
i could make a life out of this.
not the smoking, but the aura of smoking,
the togetherness and the nightfall and the words
that we share. i could make a life out of this.
i, who have never been prepared.
we are quiet tonight, but in the same
silence. we hear the footsteps together,
too many of them, and loud. i can tell from the way they walk,
the way that jed and i don't really walk,
that they're guys from our school. and i am
scared. in a way that jed is not scared.
it's not until they're closer, until they're seeing us,
that i realize one of them is pete.
one of the guys says, what's this? and pete
just looks at me. i say hello, ask him
what's up. and all he can say back to me is
you're smoking?
he says this seriously and i
laugh. he doesn't join me and i feel us
becoming untied. the guys move on, one or two of them
making jokes about me and jed, about interrupting.
pete does not look back. he's walking away and at the same time
i feel like i'm the one leaving him behind. i realize
i have already made a life out of this. i am capable
of making a life. i pass the cigarette to jed after taking
one last drag. he asks me if i'm okay and i say i'm
more than that. he agrees, and wipes some ash from my shirt.
the night continues, and we continue. i fold
the empty pack of cigarettes in my pocket, to keep.
once time is lit, it will burn
whether or not you're breathing it in.
even after smoke becomes air
there is the memory of smoke.
i am seeing, as if by the light of a match,
a glimpse of my life
and having it feel right.
this will linger.
tinder heart
i.
don't touch me
i said
because i can't
handle
someone being
good to me.
he heard me
and he listened
and i thought
my body would cry
from all it felt
and all it couldn't.
he leaned
on the pillow and i missed him
so i curled into
his side and stroked
his arm. i didn't
mind touching him.
he was solid.
he was there
as i dissolved.
why do you
do this?
he asked.
even though
i wasn't sure
what he meant
i said
i don't know
because that
had become
my answer
to everything.
ii.
there i
s
negative noticing
and there is
positive noticing.
i walk the hallway with
my friend elizabeth
and i can't help
but hate her
because she doesn't care
if they notice
(negatively)
or if they notice
(positively)
and i hate myself
because i can't help
caring, looking to see
if they notice
and what they think.
you can see
her bra strap
it's practically
at her neck
and because of this
i'm not listening
as she asks me
about last night
about pete
and what he means
to me. she doesn't like
how big he is or
how little i am
even though
she doesn't care
what shape she's in
or whether her
bra strap is showing
for all the world to
ignore.
three boys pass
without seeing me.
i should be glad
but instead
i'm the opposite.
the negative.
iii.
he intercepts me
outside the cafeteria.
we'd been at his house
which meant i was
the one to leave.
and as i walked home
i imagined him
on the couch
still reaching for me
still touching air.
how are you?