a wedding of celophane 

that semester, without you knowing,
i moved in & out of your apartment.
i slept in the medicine cabinet.
i laid down in the half-sized oven &
pressed myself into the tiny square closet
you called "the secret door."
the street lamps outside. your short curly hair
wet from a shower. the creek of wooden floor boards.
in my rusted cathedral car
i drove us one saturday to the philadelphia art museum 
& we wondered. i told you too much & too little.
i knew what to say when i wanted someone to love me 
quickly & without substance. 
i was all the statues & you were all the still lives:
a bowl of pears. a glinting pitcher. 
i was a moon in mitosis & you stole beautiful windows 
by slipping them into your pocket.
we never took walks on your street but we should have.
all the knotted old trees were my family
with their thick knees breaking open the old concrete sidewalk.
i introduced them to you. i said 
i love this boy & i am going to love him
until he wants to keep me. i think i believed
love would always be met-- that love was just a matter of
devotion. i would drive hours on the schykill expressway 
to meet him for a flicker of couch.
for a tooth's worth of mouth.
when a trans boy touches a trans boy
it feels impossible-- like this might be
the only chance you have to be electric & whole.
you knew where to touch me-- where i would fold
into elastic planets. you showed me how to hold a cock 
like a limb & not an implement, 
tightening the straps 
on my harness--telling me
you'll do fine, you'll do fine
i'll help you, let me help you guide it.
i looked at your tegan & sarah poster
for a moment between movements that night.
i was thinking about how you were the first person
who knew me only as this self. for that
i never wanted to leave you. 
i felt like a room filling with sand. 
desperate to stay. desperate to be kept.
i imagined a wedding of celophane & aluminum foil.
a tiny house in upstate new york 
where you were from. did you ever
picture driving huge highways with me? 
showers next to each other? the blurred huge future
looming huge like the blinking radio towers outside the city?
i think  you might have 
but only in flashes. i said i love you 
not because i loved you but because
i wanted to weld my needing to yours. 
i'm here to admit i knew so little about your desires. 
i stayed in your apartment, not with my body 
but with my skin. curled up in the bathtub.
over a coat hanger. perched in the window.
the last time i saw you was outside your building.
it had just rained & the night was dripping.
i told you i could walk myself to my car
& you asked if i was sure. i said yes
& ambled the crooked street. i turned back
to look at you as you tried to light a cigarette 
in the humid may air.