outline robin jester I had been arm-wrestling, mud-wrestling, thumb-wrestling with this May woman for months now and I never could get a grip on her. She had a presence on us both that could not have been painted on any closer than it was. I felt her arm around my neck when I wanted to move toward him or pull him against me. Her hands choked my throat when I had questions about their life together and the things they would do on a rainy day or a sunny day or any day in between. When my hand would go down in the bed, skim over his body, and rest (actively), I would feel her hand there already. There were words I wished to say, but they were only echoes of things she already said, things that he connected her voice with, and my sound became an intrusion on the melody, like a beginning clarinet in the London Philharmonic. May was the graceful bitch. He pointed her out to me at a poetry reading she gave. Her poetry required a dictionary. My poetry only needed a large fireplace at 451. Her voice crept along the wall I was leaning against and smacked my head. I felt the tones squeezing out the air in my lungs. When I rose to excuse myself, I tripped and fell. Everyone turned to look at the clutz. Later, May asked if I was hurt. It was understood from the very beginning that I could never be May. He said he wasn’t looking for someone to replace her. The fact is he was looking for someone to sleep with until he could get her back. “Well, she can go screw herself!” I said once, when I was a little tired of her company. “Look, you don’t have to get crazy. I’m just telling you what I was thinking. You’re the one who asked. If you don’t want to know the truth, don’t ask, ‘cuz I’ll always tell you what I really think.” He handed me the cigarette he had lit and walked over to the window. I remember the long drag I took, the long silence, the embrace of the two. It was first thing in the morning and the sun outlined his body in the window with such intensity I could swear the outline remains even now. “How old were you again?” “We were 15,” he said. “Don’t you ever listen?” “Sorry, I forgot.” “No, you didn’t.” “Fine, I didn’t.” I hadn’t. “She had zits?” “All over her face. She was a fucking nightmare, ok?” he said as he turned from the window and glared at me. “Don’t be like that,” I whispered. “Like what? What do you want me to say, ‘oh, sweetie, she wasn’t as beautiful as you’? Well, forget it. She was. And right now, she was better.” “Don’t be like that,” I repeated. “You don’t have to do that to me. I’m just trying to see what I’m up against.” “That’s just it, you’re not up against anything but yourself. You’re you. May’s May. What the hell do you have to do with each other? I’m not with May now. I’m with you.” “Yes,” I said. “You’re with me.” “What’s that? What are you doing?” “I’m just repeating you.” “No. No, you’re not.” He grabbed the back of the chair he was leaning on and shoved it under the table with as much drama he could find in the moment. He muttered “goddammit” and walked out. He was gone for a few days then. He said he was staying with a friend and I didn’t think I had to ask what friend. I could smell woman on him when he came back. I tried harder then to put May aside and not ask so many questions. We didn’t need questions. We needed peace, albeit a negative kind of peace that mostly means we all just give up. I stopped searching for her reflection in his eyes, in his words, on his teeth. Weeks went by like this and I found myself alone more and more, sprawled across the bed reading anthologies of young women writers and poets and artists and other untitled beings. In the margins I wrote comments and I underlined words that were made of more than letters. Somewhere in the phrases I found May smiling. She chanted, “he’s mine, he’s mine” and I couldn’t see her. One night I threw the book at the wall and she screamed. I took out all the things he had of her, books she published, poems she penned, pictures. I lit them one by one over the bathtub with his lighter, the one that he found on a camping trip with her. Every story they shared, every image of May outlined in his mind, I imagined throwing up to the flame until my body was purged of her impression. He walked in. It doesn’t matter what was said. The words are gone now, launched into the air and exploded into jagged pieces of refuse. I ended up sobbing in the kitchen as he opened/closed drawers, closets, zippers, suitcases in the bedroom. I stood with my back to the sounds and tried my best to blame May. He just never let go and perhaps he’ll never have another meaningful relationship. These were the things I told myself. He emerged from the bedroom. He had on the jeans with the ink stain on his thigh and a T-shirt that brought out the hint of green in his eyes. I turned to watch him go. A duffel bag and a suitcase in each hand, he went to the door, opened it, and turned to me. “You’ll never be May, will you?” What he meant was, “get over it.” “You’ll never be May, will you?” Then he walked out and I haven’t seen him since. Sometimes now I wonder who he’s with, if some beautifully secure woman has settled into his life. There are women who can handle the Mays of the world and I know that I only live with the rejection of myself. Sometimes I sit at the kitchen table first thing in the morning to see the sun illuminate the outline on the glass. But now there are two bodies there, with the trace of a smile on May’s lips.