The Mundane Motions of Preventable Platonic Breakup After I Share How Queer I Am

I am shirtless on my porch. Double-fisting mugs of tea in this summer swelter. Determined. I have built up a well of unshed tears and sweating seems to be the least painful way (if it even works like that) to rid my body of this excess of fluid. I do not want to feel my feelings but alcohol was not for me and sobering up is proving more complicated by the prescribed pills I already use to curb the chronic pain of an injury I struggle to not regret. Behind me is a plant in the window, slowly wilting due to my negligence. However, in this house I stay inside that is not mine, I made a promise to this life in a pot that we would see this season out alive. That is how come I gave up my spot in the heat and poured water in the soil of a plant that refused to die on me. Or rather, I refused to die on it. God knows I need something alive to stay

This weekend I found myself watching softball and nursing heartbreak at a gay bar. I guess I looked sad or drunk and truthfully I was only one of the two but an older Black woman approached me and asked if I was straight. We both knew I wasn’t and we both knew what she meant. I could barely speak through the grief but she understood. She asked who I lost and I said you. I said something. I said I didn’t know. I lied and said nothing.