I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

by Marisa Crane

She’s a newborn baby, for fuck’s sake. She’s basically a more sophisticated potato.

A therapist might diagnose my panic disorder with a panic disorder of its own.

We argued so often we thought we’d made a mistake marrying for love when there were things like fear and loneliness to bind you.

In middle school, my only queer friend taught me to use the word family when identifying a queer stranger in public.

essays and quizzes you were in the middle of grading, will forever be in the middle of grading.

How do you tell a classroom full of students that their teacher died giving way to another person?

knew that evidence-based was nothing more than a formal way of saying, Despite not knowing you, we will fix you.

My mother whom I love even when it is least convenient.

as if you are simply grading papers in the other room.

How, then, do I rid myself of all I’ve gathered along the way?

I want to remind her that the world is bigger than whichever classroom she winds up in.

One year, after a gay student had been bullied quite a bit, you put a sign on your door that read THERE ARE NO CLOSETS IN HERE, LEAVE YOUR BELONGINGS ON THE SHELF.

I’ve heard it said that love is choosing to listen to how someone’s day went at least thirty thousand times. Love is saying, I am here, I am paying attention, and I care about that fight you had with your coworker.

“Do you have enough light?” I ask the kid, who I catch reading in bed by flashlight way past her bedtime.

I’ve never been afraid of anything more than I’ve been afraid of my own happiness. But I want it, oh I want it.

Finally, I think I’ve got it all figured out: there is space for all of us here.

I feel an everlasting appreciation for having had the privilege of loving you and being loved by you.