preponderance
you make me want to write, she said. you make me want to drive. you make me want to push two fingers up beneath the hard middle chest part and coax my heart out into my palm none too gentle so i can take a look at it. you make me want to kick you, and tear my heart out, and i used to be so afraid of driving.
here’s how it goes. there’s the thing, and there’s the thing behind the thing.
like, here’s a mirror, hold it up to the true thing, look at it obliquely. meaning: feel it like falling down stairs, talk circles around it like an oxford debate boy. defend your position. you didn’t pick this position, and you skimped out on the research, but here you are and teacher’s watching for the chance to flick your knuckles about it. point taken, point one, one-love. be gamesome.
like, sorry i cry when i’m happy. meaning: you make me cry. meaning: you make me happy. meaning: you’ve made me, you’ve made me of glade grass and knuckle knobs and nose turning green by the train station. you’ve made me something firm, and you make me think of firmaments, and i’m not sorry for what i’ve done to get you, i’m not, even if it means i can’t be sanctified in the end.
like, you make me want to write, you make me want to drive. meaning: if i could stop, i would. the preponderance. it betrays me. i would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for the words on paper, lingering fingertips unfleeting since november. since june.
like, bring me food. bring it to that place in the lea, halfway from here to greece, under the watchful eye of the turtle shade. bring it in the heat, with the walking; i am mendicant. meaning: kiss me on the dog beach quest path. scan the horizon, then kiss me.
like, in mixed company, the question posed: how are you doing? how are you holding up? really good, actually. really very good. meaning: you.
like, lavender on the cool morning pillow. meaning: you.
like, an engine chugging away transcontinental, across bloodstreams, across, into, straight through, a dagger, a hunchback, fingers moving eyeward. an engine in a bookstore, barreling through what used to be a bookstore, what used to be a living room, what used to be the city we live in, and who are we kidding, everyone knows exactly what i’m thinking about. meaning: you.
like, i more than like you. meaning: nothing, nothing, forget about it. we both know anyways. talk to you in the morning.
Zoe Gray is a poet and playwright based in Brooklyn, NY. Their plays have been staged in avant-garde venues across NYC. They are the co-founder and artistic director of Foul Fiend Theatre Troupe, where they helm the Classics department.