B24
Public Record
Excerpt from novel: with Abandon

the three of us last night

spent the night trying to avoid
filling the roles that we assumed
everyone else assumed
we'd fill.

i avoided fulfilling the role of chaperone.
i watched as Abandon gazed,
with heartbroken longing,
into Her eyes,
and i made a point to look away
as She reciprocated.
i held conversations with Abandon
about authors and music
while my mind slivered itself with nameless hurt
and fears of leavings
and reminding myself that
i hadn't been left
yet.

Abandon avoided the role of suitor
and told heartfelt anecdotes
while maintaining eye contact with me,
but with its periphery
focused on Her
whom it longed for.
when She,
whom Abandon longed for,
became distracted from conversation
by dogs fighting
or food in the oven
or a car passing,
i could see its longing heart
being scraped firmly against a cheese grater.
when She did not erupt in fits of laughter
from its seemingly heartfelt anecdote,
its strong body softened
and its straight posture slumped
almost unnoticeably.

She avoided both the roles of partner
and the longed-for,
which were the hardest roles to avoid
because Abandon and i imposed those on Her.
She touched neither of us:
not my hand because
She didn't want to shut out Abandon and/or
press its longing heart against the grater.
She didn't touch Abandon’s hand for my sake,
although to the two of them
it would have felt like
the earth lost half its mass
and gravity had just given up.
She didn't touch its hand because
She didn't want to float off in front of me,
whom gravity still grasped.

so there we sat,
being three people we had never met:
the most intimate of strangers;
all selflessly scraping our own hearts to bits
in order to spare each other's feelings.

Frida Bilson