An email

It’s absolutely absurd

but when the email says,

“I am going to love you

for the rest of my life,”

I really do mean it.

//

Do you also know the feeling:

allowance, non-emptying?

Shocking, ha, I’m sad today

and not trying to hide it

or blame you.

//

Actually, I enjoy the sensation

of fantasizing your eye roll,

realizing we can both be

nothing to each other,

recognizing the razor

//

behind your sternum.

You laugh suddenly.

Unexpected moment.

I don’t know why but

now I am feeling

//

joy. I stood outside

waiting on Market Street

after Benni’s show slowly

realizing. Thousands of miles

away your delight at the wind

//

makes me so glad to be alive.

The night goes, beer and pinball,

clamoring dogs to return to.

I lay in bed thinking about you.

Yes, I told you that love is just

//

a feeling and that everyone

deserves it. You do, too.

So when I wake up

I will shout on the Internet

that I am not going to stop.

• Joe Nasta (ze/zir) is a queer writer and mariner based in Seattle. Joe is one half of the art and poetry collective Eat Yr Manhood with Cass Garison. Zir first book can be read for free on issuu and zir work has been published in The Rumpus, Entropy, PRISM International, Peach Mag, and others. Ze co-curates a zine of unconventional art and writing at stonepacificzine.com and is currently part of the 2022 Collective Autonomy in Practice Cohort with the Operating System/Liminal Lab.

Note: This poem was previously published in Friend -- Note in a Bottle 7 on Medium.