not want the constellations any nearer,
       I know they are very well where they are,
       I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
       (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
       I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
       I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
       I am fillâd with them, and I will fill them in return.)
I realize, as Iâm squatting in the musty bookstore, my back to The Man I Live With, that even if I stand and walk outthe door, even if I leave right now and never see him again, unless I come down with amnesia, which happens only on daytime television, Iâll always carry him with me. I canât will myself to forget his voice, his face, the rough impression of his palm on my hipâs still-forming curve.
The fact is, The Man I Live With will remember the hostel in Budapest. And the train. And the bruise-blue boat. He will remember the campground in Amsterdam.
And he will remember them differently.
I close the book and place it on the shelf, trying not to think about that fact, because thinking about it would mean acknowledging that my story is not the only story. And there is no story in which this, or our life together, makes sense.
And yet itâs the only thing I will always carry with me.
We ride the train to Denmark, where he will stay for a month after I return to the States. While I begin summer classes, heâll stay with one of his ex-wivesânot the mother of his children, but the one he married only for the visaâwhile he tries to arrange visits with his daughters and sons. Before I catch the train for the airport we all have lunch together. They talk to one another in Danish. She glares at me over her plate while she eats her sandwich with a knife and fork, though her mouth smiles and says Itâs very nice tomeet you. Itâs nice to finally meet you . I pick up my sandwich and eat it with both hands, setting it down again to take a long, slow swig from my beer. I say shit and fuck and wipe my hands on the legs of my jeans. He puts his hand over hers when she looks far down the street.
Rain falls in sheets between the train and the platform. He pulls me close, roughlyâthe last time, I tell myselfâand puts his mouth over mine, then places several crumpled bills in my shivering hand. I stuff them in my pocket and bolt down the stairs and across the platform, shouldering my way past faceless passengers, into the train cars about to pull away on the tracks. I canât remember the city: the buildings, the streets, all stamped out by darkness. But I remember the way back to the room with the cracked wall near the Grote Markt, the single bed, how I canât sleep with the sound of a guitar played badly in the courtyard, with all the tuneless but joyful singing. I dress and descend the stairs, find a group of backpackers my own age. They introduce themselves and I immediately forget their names. They hand me a cold beer, a lit cigarette. Their open faces also lit. I remember it is morning as the plane lifts from the continent. Somehow still morning when it lands.
Alone in our apartment, I open all the windows and realize only as the sunshine comes pouring in just how dark our rooms have always been. I ride my bike to class each morning, and to the coffee shop each afternoon, where I recognize a student from one of my classes. We sit together every day, both of us writing. He is my age, and handsome, I think, and he never touches me, not once, though he sits right next to me for hours every day. In the evenings I go back to the apartment and keep writing, writing. I write papers about folklore in reggae and the Jamaican struggle for independence, and about heteronormativity in contemporary fiction, and poems about the rain-pocked creek bed on
       I know they are very well where they are,
       I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
       (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
       I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
       I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
       I am fillâd with them, and I will fill them in return.)
I realize, as Iâm squatting in the musty bookstore, my back to The Man I Live With, that even if I stand and walk outthe door, even if I leave right now and never see him again, unless I come down with amnesia, which happens only on daytime television, Iâll always carry him with me. I canât will myself to forget his voice, his face, the rough impression of his palm on my hipâs still-forming curve.
The fact is, The Man I Live With will remember the hostel in Budapest. And the train. And the bruise-blue boat. He will remember the campground in Amsterdam.
And he will remember them differently.
I close the book and place it on the shelf, trying not to think about that fact, because thinking about it would mean acknowledging that my story is not the only story. And there is no story in which this, or our life together, makes sense.
And yet itâs the only thing I will always carry with me.
We ride the train to Denmark, where he will stay for a month after I return to the States. While I begin summer classes, heâll stay with one of his ex-wivesânot the mother of his children, but the one he married only for the visaâwhile he tries to arrange visits with his daughters and sons. Before I catch the train for the airport we all have lunch together. They talk to one another in Danish. She glares at me over her plate while she eats her sandwich with a knife and fork, though her mouth smiles and says Itâs very nice tomeet you. Itâs nice to finally meet you . I pick up my sandwich and eat it with both hands, setting it down again to take a long, slow swig from my beer. I say shit and fuck and wipe my hands on the legs of my jeans. He puts his hand over hers when she looks far down the street.
Rain falls in sheets between the train and the platform. He pulls me close, roughlyâthe last time, I tell myselfâand puts his mouth over mine, then places several crumpled bills in my shivering hand. I stuff them in my pocket and bolt down the stairs and across the platform, shouldering my way past faceless passengers, into the train cars about to pull away on the tracks. I canât remember the city: the buildings, the streets, all stamped out by darkness. But I remember the way back to the room with the cracked wall near the Grote Markt, the single bed, how I canât sleep with the sound of a guitar played badly in the courtyard, with all the tuneless but joyful singing. I dress and descend the stairs, find a group of backpackers my own age. They introduce themselves and I immediately forget their names. They hand me a cold beer, a lit cigarette. Their open faces also lit. I remember it is morning as the plane lifts from the continent. Somehow still morning when it lands.
Alone in our apartment, I open all the windows and realize only as the sunshine comes pouring in just how dark our rooms have always been. I ride my bike to class each morning, and to the coffee shop each afternoon, where I recognize a student from one of my classes. We sit together every day, both of us writing. He is my age, and handsome, I think, and he never touches me, not once, though he sits right next to me for hours every day. In the evenings I go back to the apartment and keep writing, writing. I write papers about folklore in reggae and the Jamaican struggle for independence, and about heteronormativity in contemporary fiction, and poems about the rain-pocked creek bed on
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