Hell, MI

My big bad beautiful brain wants another shot, another taco and a big fizzy cherry joke to wash it all down. Such as: What’s the difference between spit and swallow? But! You’ve done it backwards again, says Brain, whispery, lisping. Brain has this way of knowing things I would never admit, would never dream of telling. For example: that the way my current lover’s dumb slim body hits my body—against walls; down onto his pallet bed; all the way, sometimes, it seems, up past my cervix and into my stomach cavity—puts me in some lake state where all the breezes balm and I become so light, so placid, so sure this person is a real person. And the word floats up like a dead shark, greyly bloated with its own splendor. What’s the difference between like and love? Spit and swallow.

And which do you do when you know it’s a lie, black or white or bloody neon red all over? Takes an expert to know the difference: like/love/dead/drowning. (Zebra in a blender.) I ask can I do anything differently, anything better, and he says, You were never my problem. The half-compliments will be the ones that kill me. He says, You aren’t meeting the real me. So as a remedy for ourselves he drives us way out of the city limits to the A&W next to the fruit stand, buys us burgers and floats. I become tearful, maudlin, pouting. I dab my eyes with the scooped collar of my crop top, expose my nipples.

I really thought there’d be Cherry Coke, I pout, and he says, fatherly, Don’t sulk, and I say, I would never. I’m pouting. And he squeezes me on all of my hipbones, tells me to be quiet and eat my dinner, and I think, OK Dad, but don’t say it because the things he does oh god to my tits and neck and with those hands, oh god, fathers. No father could ever.

There was the year of the ox, year of writing Father’s and Mother’s Day cards to all our current and future lovers. A plea or a joke or a little too real. All the while we were already fighting again and here was I, late and greedy and indulgent and bloated, positive in my own conviction. Finally I bled, so cabernet-drunk there was one wild ecstatic moment I thought it could’ve just been all the wine. But what business did I have being wild or ecstatic? We finish the floats and he says there is a lake; we can go to this lake. Did you remember a swimsuit, he asks, eyes hoping I haven’t, though this is the kind of lake that has children and grandparents. They appear all around you. But in the end he brings me to this big open field, photographs me in my babydoll coveralls, electric fence and a dead Cadillac in the background. Fade out.

Loverboy is pale pale translucent paper skin so beforehand I spend all my time in the sun so that I’ll become a very deep rich brown. Arrive in a house wherein we listen very, very closely to one another; examine the shapes our mouths make toward one another. I had painted my nails cherry red for more contrast when they were on his chest and then he tells a joke: Why can’t Jesus get you pregnant? Why?

We are sober he hates beer doesn’t have any bottles is too hot for walking anywhere. There is a glass of water in front of me I wrap my little red-tipped paws tight around it. We watch movies naked miss chances to say things to one another like: Drop everything for me, use your mouth on me. Things like: Because He comes in your heart. Fall in love at some point or maybe we already had done.

And he’ll say, Do you have to go, and I’ll say, Yes, for my health and wellness, for the children. The children eventually will ask what the fuck I left for and I’ll have no good answer, I know this.

Fade to two years from that lake date, past or future, year of the unicorn. Him wearing boxer briefs making fried rice with Sriracha, in love with me again or, at least, for the first time. Flash fade to one hour before the photo field, treading in the lake, treading water/time/past/future/like/love/drowning, never asking for anything. Asks if I want to, right now, but I can think only: Parasites. Just say no: fear of the zebra mussel. He says, Liana, of course. Deception of the man who says your name early and often, who is amorous in the early hours. What this means: He is used to waking up with someone. What this doesn’t have to mean: He wished to wake up with you.

Fade back to the A&W, to the root beer float to go he orders off the drive-thru genius. Sorry about the coke, he says, and WHAT COKE, I say, panicked, checking my wallet and bra for a bag. Did I take it into the ocean?! I must have squealed, but he says we haven’t even seen the lake yet. I meant like the Cherry Coke, he says.

Cherry joke is more like it, I say, squeezing my paper cup so hard it melts.