Tin Man 🧙‍♂️

Your pallor cast gray.

You never texted me back when you were out with your friends all those states away. I got a voice memo on the way home, we’d talk about our nights, you’d say you were drifting off and wished I was there to poppyfield you to sleep. I wanted you to be present, give your friends present time. We were long distance, after all. You’d have had me there with your hand on my thigh if it was possible.

But then you came to town, and as I sat with my hand on your thigh, you texted your fuckup colleague about his girlfriend leaving him flat. Even a loser in your merry old land of work, your true Oz, gets more respect.

I secretly thought, with guilt, that your pallor cast gray. And that was it. Your gray, coated with the Tulsa dust; your clean-limbed six-three; your nickel hair and the lines in your face like crinkled leaden paint; striding with your ass in the air like a Tin Man unoiled. You’re the Tin Man. 

No heart, all hollow.

_

Editor’s note: This is a rare bylined edition, co-published with pal-of-the-newsletter Tara Giancaspro, aka xoxo Gossip Giancaspro. She writes the delightful The Week in Me. Thanks for sharing your story (and name!), Tara <3