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At Their Weddings. Their Weddings. Their Weddings. Their Weddings.
We are drunk in the bathroom alone & their blouse is pulled down.
We’re drunk in the bathroom together, blouses pulled down, & I’m placing tape gently below her underarm. I ask : & did it make you happy? & do you feel an alteration? A sense of departure from your former self? We’re in the bathroom the night before their wedding & I deliberately disrobe. I take a shower in front of them. My mouth has been open a thousand years. Someone washes someone else’s body. In the morning I do not get married. Liquor leaves my skull like a metronome & that passage from Corinthians, that passage from Corinthians, it boasts, it is proud, it perseveres, & I do not get married. In the bathroom alone I wish they were here to help me gather all this fabric. I’m expected to move seamlessly without another, am wound up in silk. I fail to relieve myself. & underneath this memory is one of their breasts. O to be this fully stoppered. I call a friend & ask : what do I do, I think I’m in love. Outside every bathroom is a partner holding my purse while I stare at a stall wall like its beige has pummeled me. We toast in the bathroom & document the mirror’s light. Our faces glow & champagne glasses brim the shots. We are champagne glasses littering the bathroom. We are in the way & necessary. I am so, so happy, they say. They mean it genuinely. Someone smashes champagne bottles poolside. They are not supposed to want to spend this night with anyone else. There are bottles yet unsmashed & I sip from them, nodding. Then I am happy for you. Underneath a mandap, there is always an open flame. Garlands. They hold hands in front of an officiant. They reference one another’s flaws & promise to live with them. I do not get married. Outside our bathroom at home, a partner does not wonder what I’m doing in here. Their best friends give speeches & I rank them based on which one made me cry like a wave was shaking out of me. I do not get married. Their weddings in frames all over our house. In their weddings I measure my nonyears. My unadorned hands. The tan, as ever, even. Leaving the bathroom, I join the circle. All the single people dance like hey. Young & worried about falling out of our outfits. Like when you try to force the champagne cork back through the bottle’s lip. How it won’t give. I press my cheek to the bathroom floor. I am happy for them, enough. Invitations arrive & arrive. I do not get married. |
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