Ode to Touching
.
My friend and I are spending more time together in an early June heat.
Their leg rests against mine beneath the library table,
an opulence of contact, their sweat
soaking my skin down to sticky carpet.
Their blunt fingers, guitar- and petal-plucked, capture my imagination like
the neon green spider cupped in their hands. I snap the shot.
We share a bottle of wine,
and out of respect for their beloved, I ask them:
is your relationship open? The polaroid ink
surfacing, like hungry koi in murky water.
They answer, no.
I hurl the empty wine bottle beneath a flickering floodlight
and it decimates. Sharp as lightning.
I wallow like a willow, collecting shards, deposit them into my pockets.
A junebug, sooty with germs, flies directly into my face.
I scream.
Slap frantically.
Try to recover some dignity as I head back inside and cram my hands deep into my pockets.
Glass rips through my fingers.
The blood rises quickly, spilling thick down my hands in red-blue ribbons.
An accidental offering.
As I go to turn off the dormitory light, the junebug smacks
against a wall with its elastic buzzing,
then disappears.
My skin crawls like leaves across pavement on a wind-dry day.
I stay awake, scraping
every inch of my room, committed to finding and expelling the insect
before going to bed, my nerves ratty and restless.
I imagine the bug lurking in my hair, over my shoulder,
scuttling across my back. Shadows settle between
the white borders of the image.
I can’t find it, yet I continue my search. As darkness splinters into dawn,
the insect has yet to reappear. I wonder if it had ever been there at all,
or if I’d imagined it, if only to have somebody
to touch.
Lilyanne Kane (they/them) is a non-binary butch lesbian, as well as a reader, a dreamer, & a caged-animal feeder. They can wink with either eye. They hold an MFA from the Mississippi University for Women. They have poetry in CV2, Passengers Journal, Okay Donkey Magazine, and elsewhere. Find them on Instagram (@PrinceofCrumbs).
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