“Moving in Together” by Phoebe Glick

Phoebe Glick | The Afters | Spiral Editions | 2022 | 33 Pages

Moving in Together 

I am not what you want for. I am a shadow
Built to remind you of what you need. You 
Are not me. You are tracing the idea 
That we are nothing to each other.
I think you spend too much time 
In the conversational industrial complex.
Unmet, our needs are salt in the wound
Of something drastically human
And hungry. Our perceived
Failure is not inevitable but requiring
Confirmation like a dive into an ice lake
That the world doesn’t end with us.
How we do have a conversation  
With ourselves to address the sadness
We burnt a hole through and molded 
Into a gaining-momentum thing?
I don’t want to make sense
I want to make something. 
I won’t build our relationship to sell it.
I want to curve myself into a promise
For more and for better. I want to believe
That there is a direction we are all
Moving in together, that there is
A together and that there will be 
A tomorrow and we will jump
Willingly, not like into a canyon 
With a gun to our backs

“Moving in Together” from The Afters.
Copyright © 2022 by Phoebe Glick.
Reprinted with permission of Spiral Editions.

Phoebe Glick is a queer Jewish writer and adjunct laborer living in Brooklyn, NY.