; the doorbell rang; there was a boy in my bed and a man on my street; the doorbell rang again, there was a man at my door; the doorbell rang and i didn’t answer it; i didn’t owe them anything, i say; does that make me a bad person, that i didn’t owe them anything, that i could evaporate like a starling flock into the sky over Italy, and not owe them a thing; not even a turd; but somehow that makes me a bad person that i didn’t owe them, when of course that was their thing, they were boys men whatever owing me nothing, that tabula rasa of Y chromosome or cis male phenomenon, all white noisy over-chewed gum; they set it up; they walked into the set up; meaning me, the owing, them, the collecting and so i didn’t owe them anything in this slurry landscape where i powered everything, but technically should have owed everything; i was there to love i was there to fuck i was there to listen, i was there be available, there to make myself available, i am supposed to be available, i am supposed to be what you want when you want it how you want it or if you don’t want it i am supposed to be available for that, to disappear on command into my pigeonhole; i was there to be discarded, which is to say i was there in a way like i was not.

The truth is i wanted to owe. 

but i couldn't say that, that kind of available, that i wanted a knife at my throat demanding all my money, in the bag now;

and in this obscene of me not owing anything in a world where the set up was i owed to everyone, to the boy in the bed and the man on the street, to the doorbell that rang—it was like Hades on top of Heaven, angels are bottoms, i mean who knew? It was a screensaver sliding like a Salvador Dali painting; it was the scent of offline, the bird’s eye peep of alive in slanted lines, that someone’s been sleeping in my bed–

but damn, you like it; 

Outside there was clean. Outside there was time, still such a thing as time tightening its rope around necks, pulling like tides into spreadsheets and closet organizers and factory farmed meat, suburban subdivisions and rows of bingo, contact lenses and meal planning, machines blowing leaves. Outside there was owing. Outside, doorbells got rung and dirt got concrete; but here, here in nowhere, there was nothing owed, oyster-shucked liquidity;

and in that obscene vision the boy was a man who was owed but didn't act it, oh my, smitten thing; oh ain’t that the thing, love, you’re in love, stop distancing, i mean, i’m in love, with someone who wants me to owe nothing; he said, I see this ending; he said, I don’t prefer you, he said, is it ok if we’re not dating; he said, is it ok, if I don’t feel the same; and each time i said it’s ok, whatever, the wrong thing is ok, or maybe the wrong thing is saying it’s ok when it’s kind of not, but then again it is, according to girl math, to all this floating into God in his neck; but he did actions, multiplication and division, some fractions, and that thing with a wrench and a gas tank and the actions he gave away, worked the words he said into a pulp that ran down the sink, forgotten, furloughed, his actions fucked my rib cage with love, saved my lung from another state and drove it home, back to its catacombs, windows cracked; so he can say all he wants or not say it. Not say it. Not say it. Not say— 

god, can’t you just say it? 

; but he does not say he loves me, and i don’t care, which is obviously a lie; fucking pick me already you know you are so goddamn into me you can’t stand it, but i don’t say that, and i didn’t then, so the doorbell rang and rang and rang again, with the boy in my bed, this person who inflates my vocal cords, but won’t take me home after the show; he doesn’t have one anyway, his only home is under my nailbeds, a residence inside my skin and so the doorbell keeps ringing and rang-ing, the texts keep pinging, the five paragraph essays from males who mean nothing, who will laugh and say i deserve this, i deserve this nothing, but god, i laugh and say, this nothing undoes me, and i swear if someone types ‘lol’ on an app or mentions a hot tub or spells with “z’s” where the letter ‘t’ should be then i’ll go medusa or swamp-thing; the you-owe-me-receipts keep adding up, stacked on a pointed stick; the men tabulating, the men do not stop so change go the locks; and so back to this, then, no tense, beyond lies, when: the doorbell rang, and it rang again ten minutes later, and again, petals fluttering at the entrance, still:

i wanted violence.

the doorbell rang; oh, but could i keep it, here, this fondu of unknown i breaststroke, my dream: him; this pocket bardo deep in time’s wrinkles, porridge that is just right; could i keep it, plunge a fang in its cream, oh– could we keep anything? And isn’t that just it. Isn’t that just it under the sea urchin spikes, the starfish dying out; extinction; heat. There is no keep. There is just: Watch it slip. Watch your grip fail. It began with a boy in my bed and a man on the street; the doorbell rang; digits undoing, a tooth loosening, the release, finally, of a pinkie – et tu? –  or maybe a turd. Treason: that raveling you don’t want, but— how i want. I want. Call on God, Goldilocks, the window opening; the doorbell rang; it began with things that could only be lost; the doorbell rang; love, always the death of something; the doorbell rang, no bag to put the money in; the doorbell rang; there is no answer, wings spread over Italy; look: nothing owing. The ridiculous thing is you still have hope.