It was a friday evening, I think it was raining but maybe it was only cold. My friend needed help. Or maybe she didn’t, maybe she was only scared. My friend, she said she was stuck. Or, something was stuck. She laid on the floor as I prepped for surgery. Together, we pulled an accidental second tampon out of her vagina. She said she was so tired she forgot to take the first one out before changing it. We laughed. I went home later that night to find my brother and his friend fast asleep. My brother in his queen sized bed, his friend on the floor. I thought how lonely masculinity must feel. I thought maybe that is an ignorant thought. It was not long after my grandmother died that I was at a friend’s house after a day in the muddied park. I went to shower and she handed me her new expensive conditioner her father had picked up at the store, still in the shopping bag, she had yet to use it. She said here, I think this would work well in your hair, you have the texture for it, he got the wrong one for me. I thought how she had noted the texture of my hair and remembered to save the bottle for me. I cried, I am not sure why, I think the kind feminine gesture reminded me of my loss. Not wanting to be alone, she sat on the toilet as I showered and kept me company. She painted my nails after.

I got home later that night and saw my father standing in the kitchen. I asked why he wasn’t at dinner with his friends. He said he wasn’t up for friends, he was remembering the loss as well. I thought how lonely masculinity must be. I thought maybe that is an ignorant thought. I went through a breakup last October. My roommates set up camp in the living room with me and so that I never had to be alone. Still missing some of my things, they readily gave me items of their own to keep. I just finished the perfume bottle they gave me, and I cannot get myself to throw it away. We watched movies, they let me cry on their shoulders, they listened to me repeat the same stories until after 4 in the morning. My sister got me flowers in a vase, the book she had remembered me talking about, and a care basket of simple foods to get down. My brother asked why we did not just go out for drinks or find a party. I thought how lonely masculinity must feel. I thought maybe that is an ignorant thought. I was in Target the other day and a man began to follow me. A woman walked over and pretended to know me, she assigned me a name and said she had been looking for me and she was sorry for being late to meet me here. She asked if I wanted to try another store, they don’t seem to have what she needs here. As she walked me to my car, we exchanged our real names. I thought maybe masculinity would be freeing in a way. 

Dimensions coming

I think all the purest forms of love, I have learned from women. I think of the way we do each others hair rather and all doing our own. I think of the notes we leave one another, the way we remember things. I think of how we love each other strangers. I think of how we hold one another up and also accountable. I think of how our love exceeds friends of friends of friends and we smile when we connect our lines. I think maybe it was through centuries of being bound by society that women themselves sought their own form of defiance in having none. I think maybe it is not so existential, maybe it is our nature. Mother nature has no boundaries and neither do her daughters. I think maybe it is not so philosophical. I think maybe instead it starts in a women’s bathroom.