by Emily Dalton
Your giant eyes gleam through the dark,
searching my face,
hoping, I can tell,
not to find it looking serious.
I titter nervously, still clinging to optimism
as you take my hand and keep us walking along.
You say, “I kind of figured we’re
gonna be together forever, so
might as well be young and hot now,
while we still can.”
young and hot while we still can
Before I’ve got time to process
your forward-thinking backward reasoning,
you whisk me away
into another conversation
and dance us all the way home.
The real world often feels
like it’s crashing down on me
in one way or another.
But tonight, it’s
my preciously remodeled version
of Max and Emily World
that has suddenly grown
painfully heavy.
The next time we see each other
will be in Munich at Oktoberfest in a few weeks.
And it sucks to wonder
whether we shouldn’t have booked
that hotel room together
back in the middle of the summer.
REFLECTIONS: FIRST BOYFRIEND
Seventh grade just started.
Timmy and I have never actually
talked to each other in person.
But we talk on instant messenger
every day.
And sometimes,
we even talk for hours,
late into the night
when I should totally
be sleeping.
But I just can’t
say “bye” to him.
After a month,
we put each other’s initials
in our AIM profiles.
Then we go to the movies,
and he holds my hand the entire time.
Another month later,
he says he loves me.
And I say it back
over instant messenger.
HIGHLIGHTS OF OKTOBERFEST
Watching countless people stand atop
long biergarten tables and attempt
the full-stein chug.
Posing for an Italian photographer
who squirms around on the ground
for the perfect angles.
One of Joanna’s friends from high school
falling asleep while standing in line.
An endless supply of rotisserie chicken platters.
You flirting in German with a middle-aged woman
who insists on reapplying her deep-red lipstick
before planting a kiss on your cheek.
Joanna peeing under one of the tables
in the tent because the bathrooms might
as well be mosh pits.
Hot German boys in lederhosen challenging
Joanna and me to drink beer from our shoes—
which we do, a worn leather boot tipped up
to Joanna’s lips and one dirty old Converse up to mine.
Constant music, singing, and dancing.
And a shattering of language barriers
because everyone speaks the jubilantly unifying
language of beer.
LEAVING OKTOBERFEST
At the end of the weekend,
when it’s time to depart the festival grounds,
you, Joanna, and I follow the dreary
mass exodus to the Munich bus station.
We pass by an American woman in her fifties or sixties
with a Midwestern accent and a mean scowl,
pumping a sign about Jesus into the air
and shouting about everyone’s sins.
“He is all-powerful! He will punish you!
Jesus Christ our Lord, our one eternal Lord!
He will see that all sinners burn in hell!”
You can’t resist.
You frolic over to the patch of cement
she occupies and start to yell
with her,
at her,
and over her,
much to her palpable distaste.
“God bless us! Everyone!” you shout.
“May peace be with you, and also with you,
and with you, too! My God is an awesome god!
He reigns from heaven above!
Jesus loves me! This I know! Don’t you know?”
“Sinner! You’re a sinner!” she barks at you.
“What if GOD was one of us?” you yodel.
“Just a SLOB like one of us?”
“All of you! SINNERS!” she shrieks.
Her gaze falls on Joanna and me, standing off to the side.
“You are NOT God’s children!”
“Smite me, Lord! I’m sinning!” you shriek.
Then you toss your German flag scarf
around her back and lasso her into a dance.
She swats you away with her sign,
uninterested in dancing with a bibulous devil.
I wish I could laugh
or join in your counter-heckles,
but we have to leave each other soon,
and we’re not just carefree friends
doing stupid shit anymore.
I grab you by the arm and drag you away,
the woman shouting after us, waving her sign in the air.
As we continue on toward the exit,
you spring about in front of us,
shouting “May the Lord be with you!”
to everyone we pass.
“What did you say?”
The guy is tall,
American, late-twenties, and has
a long dirty blond ponytail.
He approaches you with a sinister look.
“May the Lord be with you!”
you offer again enthusiastically.
But when you start to frolic away,
the guy grabs you by the shoulder.
“You have something to say to my friend?
Say it to my face.” He gestures to his three friends,
but even they are backing off a little.
You sober up a bit, sensing danger.
“Dude, I was kidding. I wasn’t talking to your friend.”
Joanna and I watch nervously
as the guy interrogates you.
“Oh, I think you were talking to him.
Say it—say it to my face,” he grunts.
“Come on, say it to my face, fairy!”
Now he’s tightening his hold on your shoulder,
and something snaps inside of me.
I bolt forward. “He wasn’t talking to you, dude—
so get the fuck away!”
I step in between you and push
ponytail boy away.
He attempts to curve around me, reaching for you,
and again, a protective instinct kicks in.
Without thinking, I push him again,
this time pressing the palm of my hand
against his face.
“Fuck OFF, dude!”
He stumbles back and looks up at me in disgust.
If I’ve ever tried to kill
with my feminine gaze,
it’s right now.
“Oh yeah, let a GIRL fight for you, PUSSY!”
he yells after us as we hurry away.
I can’t resist turning around
to get the last word.
I give him the finger.
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“Go fix your PONYTAIL, honey!”
He’s still shouting as we quicken
our pace to distance ourselves.
Then moments later, he’s out of sight,
and the three of us burst into laughter,
recounting the look on his face when I
pressed my palm into it.
And even as you and I are about to part ways,
a jolt of adrenaline lifts my spirits.
On the bus back to Prague, I try to hold on
to the good parts of the weekend,
but my mind wanders skeptically
around that last interaction—with ponytail boy.
What a perfect opportunity it was for me
to play the woman card in my split-second reasoning—
I’m a woman, and he’s a man.
I can get away with putting my hands on him,
and there is no way he will dare
to penetrate my gender shield.
But then, what if I had been a man?
What if I had been a gay man?
Trying to jump in and protect you . . .
And now I’m all confused,
asking myself whether I was using my gender
to show you what you can’t get from a man,
or whether you were using my gender
to show men what they can’t take from you.
As Joanna sleeps soundly in the seat next to me,
I stare blankly out the bus window,
thinking about everything
but seeing nothing
but white smoke
and the darkness of your sigh,
and the white smoke fades, and we’re
on the hotel balcony last night,
and you’re asking me how I’m
going to deal with you
still being attracted to guys.
“But that’s what being in love is—” I say,
“not acting on the side attraction. Right?”
“I don’t know, Em . . .
I think love
can be
a lot
of different things
for different people.”
REFLECTIONS: SECOND BOYFRIEND
At the beginning of tenth grade,
my neighbor brings his friend Franklin
camping with our families on Labor Day weekend.
I’ve seen Franklin at school before;
he’s in the grade above me.
Sitting around the campfire,
he makes a witty joke and plays
a really good song on his phone by a band
I’ve never heard of.
His glasses are kind of nerdy,
but I think he’s cute.
A month later, we’re dating,
and a few months after that,
we’re so in love.
I think I’m going to marry him.
YOU VISIT ME IN PRAGUE
“But seriously. I need your body. How can I have it?”
I love hearing you say these words,
but I also hate how much I love it.
We stand in the shower kissing,
our bodies pressed together.
I hesitate before kneeling down—
something I’ve never done with you.
Up until now, you’ve always been the one doing things to me.
You stop me.
“Your soft, lady touch kind of just tickles.”
I’m trying not to look upset
as I stand up,
tilt my head back under the water,
and smooth my hair away from my face.
THE DAY BEFORE YOU GO BACK TO BERLIN
The afternoon sky turns a bright gray
as we sit on a bench underneath
the Žižkov TV Tower.
I stare up the length of the three
chrome trunks of the tower—
originally built to intercept
anti-communist radio transmissions.
For years after the fall of communism,
it stood there like a misplaced toy rocket ship
dropped in the middle of a baroque diorama.
Then, in 2001, an artist named David Černý
was asked to improve its appearance.
He sculpted giant black fiberglass babies
and fixed them on the tower as if
they were crawling up and down it.
I’ve been looking forward to bringing you here,
to the Žižkov Tower,
because it’s such a bizarre-looking structure
in this senseless shrug of city—
not to mention “diaper” is one of your favorite words.
I think you will find it
just as fascinatingly weird
as I do.
But when I point out the massive babies,
you merely snort and make
some disinterested remark
about how they look more
like ants than babies.
I’m noticing lately that
you’re not gazing at me as often,
not cuddling into my side;
you’re being a bit less hand-holdy,
which is fine; that happens.
. . . I googled it once back in high school
when I started to feel bored
with my third boyfriend, Ryan.
I clicked through article after article
looking for a logical explanation,
until—aha!
The honeymoon phase has to end
so that the couple can start focusing
on procreating and taking care of children . . .
Just a few days ago, when you arrived,
we made love in the shower, and then you
held me in my bottom bunk bed, whispering
cute jokes about our future children.
“They’re all going to have red hair.”
“Nooo,” I groaned.
“Yes. We’re going to lead a tribe
of little gingers with blue eyes.
You’ll be a business-diaper
and bring home the bacon,
and I’ll be the fun stay-at-home dad.”
“Why do I have to be the business-diaper?”
You scoff, “Because you’re not good with kids . . .
. . . and I’m not tough enough to be a business-diap.”
And now I’m wondering whether you feel inadequate, too . . .
I know I can’t always give you what you need—
but I also know how hard it was
for you to hide who you were
for so many years, then finally
feel open and proud . . .
and then fall in love with me
a girl
and how much harder that must make it
for you, straddling your shame-filled past
and our unpredictable love.
Beneath the tower, tension builds
as you scold me
for doing too many party drugs
with the “frat boys” in my abroad program
who live on the third floor.
I stare into the bare butt
of the lowest baby,
part of me envying the simplicity
of crawling around on all fours,
just innocently exploring the world,
and part of me trying to decide
how to react to what my gay
pseudoboyfriend has just implied.
You don’t say it outright, but
you’re suggesting that
my uterus won’t be healthy enough
to bear your child.
I’m probably the only lover
you’ll ever have
who can give you one of your own.
REFLECTIONS: SECOND BOYFRIEND, CONTINUED
It’s late in the spring of tenth grade
and I’m practicing baton handoffs at track practice when
one of the older girls sees Franklin
waving to me from the parking lot.
I tell her that he’s my boyfriend.
She looks confused and says:
“Oh, I always thought he was gay!”
I laugh, but I’m confused, because
sure, he’s a little dorky, but he’s obviously not gay.
The gay kids at our high school
are all friends with each other;
they’re artsy, or emo,
and in the school plays.
In this mostly white upper-class suburb
in Connecticut, the kids who openly defy
the “good” stereotypes—Jock, Smart, Pretty—
are assigned the “bad” stereotypes:
Weird, Nerd, Gay.
United by their oddness.
Outsiders together.
I wave back to Franklin.
THE NIGHT BEFORE YOU GO BACK TO BERLIN
We walk through the gardens
and courtyards of Pražský hrad—
Prague Castle—at one in the morning.
The rain has stopped, and
the fog hangs thick and green
in the spotlights that
beam up the castle walls.
We sit next to each other
on the wide, damp steps
and stare out into the mist
falling over the Vltava River.
You’re telling me that you think
you need to be with boys again.
You wait for me to say something.
I look up at you, tears threatening my eyes.
You continue, “I don’t think I’m
going to be able to know what
I really want until I’m old.
Like, twenty-eight.”
Twenty-eight.
I stare into your eyes,
wishing I had never met you,
angry at you, angry at myself
for believing I could
keep you
straight.
The next morning, I watch your bus
disappear around the corner,
and I continue to stand there,
staring off into empty space.
Seven years till twenty-eight . . .
a lot of empty space.
REFLECTIONS: THIRD BOYFRIEND
A week after I dump Franklin,
Ryan and I meet at a house party