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The surety in our relationship came not from individual aspects of our id

entities, not from the wounds we carried, but from confidence: that we could love each other as we needed That we could share in each other’s joy That we could heal each other

We never did finish writing the artist residency proposal Our best for and supporting each other

For both of us, our relationship allowed us to reclai her sexuality, cli, and the centrality of intellect to her soul She worked aneard her dreams of an art MFA, edited her portfolio and artist statement, attended her top pick

Formyself permission: to write, to value happiness, to choose faith over doubt or criticism, to choose, however teative coment

For both of us, our relationship aze, in being seen fully, in confronting each other honestly, there was nowhere to hide Stop hiding, we told each other, with regard to different aspects of our lives

This nakedness allowed us to access new understandings of not only ourselves—and our work, and our creative visions—but also of how boundless, rewarding, and generous love can be

Part Two

If our beginnings were tangled and co was infinitely more so The ways in which our relationship imploded would require its own essay

I wanted to believe that a first queer relationship didn’t have to be tragic I wanted to write a happy essay about love Life interfered

When queer people heard of our breakup, I receivednod “First queer relationship,” I heard, alongside co it was that it ended in catastrophic fashion A shorthand, subjective version of our ending ht include her stepmother and father’s dislike and disapproval; resultant friction in our relationship, from which we couldn’t recover; our breakup; and, in the days after, her father’s death in a tragic accident

Even so, I can’t ascribe our relationship to a category like ret There was an inevitability to it We , as neorlds were opening—forand a return to intellectual pursuits

I still have the sheepskin rug she gave s on es re beautiful, once

11 GOLDEN DAYS

There are the days, after a walk on the elevated abandoned-then-converted train track a few blocks frohtly in the face as I walk, when I lie next toslowly as she reads words aloud fro essays as research for the book I need to complete She shares opinions on each story as she reads I share stories about the workshop drama mentioned in the book’s introduction We snack on popcorn, salted and garlic-powdered and dusted with nutritional yeast I wonder, if, despite everything, these are olden days