9PM/midnight hotel room

i nestled into the niche,

tried to fit,

said things like ‘queer futurity’

and hoped the body in and out of time

made sense in some capacity 

again again again

my once and future project

saying the words but

fishing, wanting, waiting, repeating,

wishing the niche was a little more grooved

it felt like the land that is and isn’t,

the warmth and wet and quiet 

of a 9PM/midnight hotel room, 

alone thinking drowning and breathing

and thinking and breathing stilly,

until change sunk in languidly and 

suddenly and

it’s one thing to look at a future,

another thing entirely to grasp it’s reality,

like gazing into a mirror and accepting

that perhaps there will always be a scar on your neck

and you should be grateful it is there 

because it is 

the study of bodies

women and pregnancy, 

the queer futures that would not be

because i couldn’t breathe.

i yearn for the emptiness. 

i am the desire to be and do 

to think and feel and study 

and mother and want and love 

and know and learn and know and learn 

and feel and study and.

how does every day become

a day-to-day and also the fantastic –

a fairytale, an almost, a could-be.

he never said a word,

honestly i think he didn’t notice.

he loved me for me.