Be Straight with Me

by Emily Dalton

  in the middle of the summer before

  junior year, and we’re both wasted

  on water bottle vodka and somehow

  end up making out all night in the

  parents’ bedroom, and in the morning,

  he’s sweet and makes me laugh.

  A month later, we’re dating,

  and a few months after that,

  we’re so in love.

  I’m going to marry him.

  PRAGUE METRONOME, CONTINUED

  I visit the Metronome many times

  throughout the semester, sometimes

  with others but usually alone,

  drawn to the sublime view—

  to my own lack of understanding

  for its origins and meaning.

  A massive statue of Joseph Stalin once

  stood on the pedestal atop the hill

  where the Metronome stands now.

  Though his dense granite head was blown off

  shortly after its installment in 1955,

  the Metronome didn’t take his place

  for another thirty years, in 1991,

  after the Velvet Revolution triggered

  the fall of communist regimes and Soviet control.

  A metronome seems a fitting symbol for

  the link between the Czech Republic’s

  newly established democracy

  and its inescapable communist past.

  The kinetic energy

  meant to keep the seventy-five-foot arm

  ticking back and forth often ebbs,

  causing the arm to fall still

  on one side or the other—

  momentum stuck in place,

  waiting to be wound up again.

  The spot still conveys the notion of the place

  where Stalin once stood over the city.

  Yet the Metronome prevails over those

  stale and shameful memories

  with something he could never control:

  time.

  And as I sit here beneath the Metronome,

  dangling my Converse over the edge,

  breathing in this ancient city of spires

  that labors to distance itself from the past,

  my thoughts keep coming back to you—

  how I’m in love with a boy

  who needs more time before

  he can be in love with me.

  KAFKAESQUE

  I wonder whether Kafka

  might have been

  secretly gay.

  A hundred years ago,

  Kafka met Felice Bauer,

  and they had a tumultuous

  five-year relationship,

  constantly ending and picking

  back up again.

  He lived in Prague,

  she lived in Berlin,

  and all the while,

  they hid their true selves

  behind letters sent back and forth

  across borders.

  Well, mainly Kafka did.

  He often canceled plans

  to meet in person. He broke

  their engagement to be married—twice—

  and he was painfully cryptic

  in his letters to Felice.

  My professor is having us read

  one of the letters out loud in class.

  I start feeling anxious and sweaty,

  and my heart is pounding, as if

  a taunting spotlight is singling me out.

  Paragraph by paragraph, the letter

  makes its way through the rows.

  With Kafka’s words closing in on me,

  my hands start to shake, and

  I’m back on the Prague Castle steps

  in the middle of the night.

  I can hear the distant voice

  of my classmate reading

  but I’m watching your mouth move:

  “. . . I love you to the limits of my strength.

  But for the rest I do not know myself completely . . .”

  The rain falls faster, heavier.

  The letter makes its way to my row.

  “. . . whether it is possible for me to take you

  as though nothing had happened,

  I can only say that it is not possible . . .”

  I want to scream at you and push you

  down the castle steps, but the rain

  is flooding the river over the cobblestones.

  The current is growing stronger against

  our bodies, and I think I might drown.

  There are two students between me and the letter.

  The rain on our skin is hot.

  Steam rises from the river around us.

  “. . . But what is possible, and in fact necessary,

  is for me to take you with all that has happened,

  and to hold on to you to the point of delirium.”

  I want to carve the number twenty-eight

  into your flesh (you’d just laugh, anyway)

  so you won’t forget what you told me:

  that you’ll know what you really want

  when you reach that age.

  Instead, I kneel in front of you.

  I tell you I’m sorry.

  And now we’re in the shower at Máchova,

  and all of my classmates are watching

  while I try unsuccessfully

  to give you a blow job.

  They’re laughing at me.

  LIKE FELICE

  Felice saved all of Kafka’s letters,

  but most of her letters to him

  are gone now.

  I imagine how we’d sit at a bar in Old Town,

  Felice and me, drinking cocktails.

  “Why do we let these men toy with us like this, Felice?” I’d ask.

  Felice would shake her head and sigh,

  “Because we’ve never met anyone else like them.”

  “Cheers,” I’d groan, and we’d clink glasses

  before downing the last of our drinks.

  BRUGES FOR THANKSGIVING

  On our first day in Bruges,

  cold rain comes down hard

  in the morning but dissipates

  into a foggy sprinkle by

  the time we leave the Golden Tree.

  The sidewalk is slick with a patina

  of bright yellow wet leaves.

  We take selfies with swans

  on the edge of the canal.

  We walk around the perimeter of the market square,

  admiring the massive bell tower

  and eating frites dipped in mayo.

  We wander along a canal on the hilly outskirts

  of town, past large windmills.

  We take a boat ride through the city,

  under low bridges, past medieval stone architecture.

  We stroll through a garden

  and hang out with more swans.

  I take in the quaint history

  of a romantic city

  with the person I love.

  OUR SECOND DAY IN BRUGES

  We force down the truffles,

  chase them with some Belgian chocolate,

  and smoke two joints on the balcony,

  the world slowly funneling into the confines

  of the hotel room at the Golden Tree,

  taking us along with it.

  Soon there is no outside,

  no weather,

  no Bruges,

  no Europe,

  no planet Earth—

  just us, willing prisoners.

  We lie in bed for a while, staringr />
  at the picture of the red flower

  that hangs on the wall.

  And then we’re rolling around in sweatpants,

  giggling and shrieking

  in a composition

  of joy and terror,

  fascinated by

  and terrified of

  ourselves.

  Somewhere in the deepest throes

  of the trip, I cannot stop

  cry-laughing and laugh-crying

  into the pillows on the bed.

  I’ve never experienced such

  duality of emotion, like I exist only

  inside the space between

  opposing feelings.

  I am happy and sad,

  lost and found,

  loved and left.

  I am everything and nothing

  that falling in love with you has made me feel.

  Sometime around 10 p.m.,

  we remember there is a world

  outside that little red room.

  We pull on coats and hats and boots

  like we’ve never dressed ourselves before.

  We walk out into the hall,

  as if into a funhouse dream.

  I try to remind myself that

  there is nothing to be scared of.

  We can’t yet speak in full sentences.

  We find an eerie bench

  in an alcove

  of an old church.

  The massive brownstone is

  alight in tiny spotlights that

  catch the microscopic drops of water

  falling through their beams.

  The grass underfoot and the shrubbery in the courtyard

  look synthetic green in such a dark corner of time and space.

  You and I fit well into this film noir—

  I can see it now . . .

  Two lovers sit side by side in silence, passing a smoke back and forth. They’ve just faced down their greatest fears—life, death, art, love. They aren’t sure they liked what they saw. They once thought the love they shared had given them new life . . . but now it could be the death of them. The fog thickens as they sink into the shadow of their heavy bodies, blowing smoke up into the clouded night sky.

  Sitting on the bench near the church,

  I return to my physical place in the real world—

  and then succumb pathetically to an empty stupor.

  We return to our hotel room and get back in bed,

  lying on our sides, staring into each other’s faces,

  trying to channel our thoughts back into focus.

  The overwhelming sensation of consciousness

  still hasn’t dulled, and restful sleep is like a final destination

  that keeps moving farther and farther away.

  You turn to lie flat on your back.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask you.

  “I don’t know. I just can’t keep staring

  at you like that.

  I feel weird and dead.”

  The next day—our last day in Bruges—

  we pack up our things and leave the Golden Tree,

  two heartsick zombies.

  The weather has finally cleared,

  and a bit of sunlight shines through

  as we walk aimlessly down side streets,

  past fountains, and over small footbridges.

  The few words spoken between us are brusque and faltering.

  I know the weekend has turned out to be a failure.

  And I can sense that you’re feeling

  a growing resentment toward me for all of it—

  like it was my fault the weather had been bad

  and we had stayed inside too long

  and we had felt so scared and confused.

  The train ride back this Sunday afternoon

  is so crowded with flocks of weekend travelers

  that we can’t sit near each other.

  My mind and body feel so devoid

  of their normal capacities to function

  that I can’t even figure out how to sleep.

  I sit listening to songs I don’t

  even like that much anymore.

  But I barely hear them anyway.

  REFLECTIONS: FOURTH BOYFRIEND

  Ryan got drunk and cheated on me,

  so we aren’t really together,

  only kind of together still, when

  I break it off completely and then

  make out with his friend Simon

  at a party on New Year’s Eve.

  Ryan has some kind of mental breakdown and

  says he’s going to kill himself,

  and my mom

  has to call the police, but

  once that settles, Simon and I

  start dating and fall so in love.

  It’s the worst that I have to break up with him

  because he’s going to UCONN

  and I’m going to Middlebury,

  because I’m, like, ninety percent sure

  I’m going to marry him.

  YOUR HEART’S IN MY SHOES

  It’s the end of the semester,

  shortly after midnight in December.

  I sit next to you on the frosty ledge

  under the Metronome in Letná Park,

  taking in one last bittersweet view of Prague.

  I’ve fantasized about this moment

  since the first day back in August

  when the span of the Atlantic

  felt so despondently infinite.

  Tonight I’ve come prepared

  with my old tattered Converse

  tucked inside my purse.

  I’m scanning the line of shoes

  above us with a smile,

  but as I look over at you,

  I hate how deeply the sadness

  of leaving you penetrates

  my excitement to go home.

  I’m realizing how different you look

  from when I first met you.

  Your face is much thinner,

  and your dirty blond hair is longer.

  You’ve started dressing differently, too.

  Skintight pants and boots

  in place of old khakis and sneakers.

  “I miss you already, Max. It hurts.”

  I lean into you.

  “I know, honey. It hurts everywhere.”

  I was hoping it wouldn’t come up—

  that maybe you should, for our sake,

  explore your sexuality,

  “do the gay thing”

  these last two months

  while you’ll still be here in Europe

  without me.

  I close my eyes and breathe deeply.

  We spend the rest of the night

  sitting under the Metronome in limbo,

  and it feels like you’re an intruder

  in my special place.

  I invited you in, but

  I didn’t realize how much space

  you would take up.

  I have no one to blame but myself.

  The next morning, going through security at the airport, I realize that I forgot to toss

  sneakers

  Converse up

  old over

  ratty the

  my line.

  WHITNEY

  Returning to campus for the start of winter term,

  I can hardly crack a smile

  at a group of freshmen sledding

  down a hill on dining hall trays

  or a herd of senior guys bombarding

  each other with snowballs.

>   Everything around me

  is a reminder of you,

  and through messages and FaceTime

  you can sense my depression.

  You know you can’t

  be the support I need,

  across the ocean in Europe,

  so you recruit Whitney,

  my best friend from home.

  Despite being swamped with work

  and busy with indoor track,

  she comes for a quick weekend visit.

  Whitney and I pregame with a bottle of Fireball

  and blast some of our favorite high school anthems.

  We pour one out to “Ghetto Gospel,”

  the Tupac song Whit named my car after,

  and we botch the dance moves she made up

  to “Break Your Heart” by Taio Cruz

  for an impromptu flash mob at our senior prom.

  We make it out to a party but stay

  only long enough to do “da stanky leg”

  to a few songs before going back

  to listen to our favorite Third Eye Blind jams.

  And nothing new or exciting happens, but

  I feel like I’ve been cleansed or reborn,

  or something spiritual like that, because

  I laugh more tonight than I have in months.

  Three weeks later, when you finally

  return to me, I jump

  into your arms as soon

  as they’re free of luggage.

  VALENTINE’S DAY

  For weeks I’ve insisted

  you STOP saying “I love you.”

  “Fine, I won’t say I love you,” you say.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll just come up with something else

  that means the same thing—”

  No rose petals.

  No chocolates.

  No teddy bears.

  On Valentine’s Day

  you cover my bed

  in diapers.

  Diapers . . .

  bursting from my drawers,

  hanging in my closet,

  tucked into my winter boots

  and my track spikes

  and my ratty old Converse sneakers.

  Diapers strewn all over the floor.

  One diaper, propped up against my pillow,

  has a note in black marker:

  My Diaper Only Sweats for You.

  Happy Valentine’s Day.

  I laugh and I cry, and

  my heart breaks apart into pieces,

  melting.

  You clear some of the diapers

  from my bed and sit next to me.

  You hold out a small blue pouch—Tiffany Blue.

  I open it up and pull out

  a tiny misshapen heart

  hanging from a delicate silver chain.