who’d walk across a fire for you,
growled Melissa. That song
blared out from all four of
our bedrooms’ tape decks,
often simultaneously, as if
that song was the only one
we all loved, the only one we
could agree on that summer
in the dyke loft, just when it
all started to change. Catherine
was moving out, to SoHo to
live with Melanie. So Shigi’s
girlfriend DM took her room.
But not for long; they broke up
and Michelle moved in, shortly
after Cynthia came. Tonight you
told me that you ache for something
new. This was way before we’d
even dreamed we’d have to rent
out Shigi’s office to Erin as a fifth
bedroom. Without Catherine we
couldn’t afford the loft, but we
didn’t know that yet. At the time
we thought everyone was poor
like us—we weren’t the only ones.
We all smoked constantly, anyone
could afford to smoke back then.
Catherine bummed my last butt
but I know I saw her new carton
in the freezer. She didn’t want
to open it yet, was trying to
cut back. This was before we
almost got the gas cut off, before
we lost electricity the first of
many times. After Justine had
been bullied out with her three
cats but Kristen—whom we
suspected was asexual and not
really lesbian—was still hanging
on even though she adopted yet
another cat into the loft without
asking. It was only one more,
she reasoned, but we already
had Seether, Amber, Balzac,
Gigli, and now Eva Luna.
Anna and Jackie came by,
they were friendly to me, but
Tjet and Julie weren’t. T and J
were Clit Club. A and J were
literary. Then Michelle and
Shigi secretly slept together,
a disaster, and Cynthia got
kicked out for being bi and
then bringing a guy to the loft,
but that summer before all that,
just after I’d been dumped by
the girl I’d moved to NYC
to be with, and just after I’d
invited my first college girlfriend to come visit me
(not sure what I expected
but she was the only one
who was willing to fly out)
but before I met Natira.
Our month-long affair
wasn’t great but still pretty
damn good, she was the only
one I’d liked in a long time. I
hadn’t met Sayeeda yet, at
Jackie’s book party—Jackie
and Anna I think were broken
up by then. After Stefanie
but long before Tina, before
Jamie had even met Tina,
this song played everywhere,
every day, ceaselessly, so it
started to seem that we were
Melissa, that Cassandra,
foretelling in a ragged voice:
“And I’m the only one who’d
drown in my desire for you.”
We meant that we too were
willing to do anything to
prove we were the only one
for someone that one summer.
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Brenda Shaughnessy is the author of five poetry collections, including The Octopus Museum; So Much Synth; and Our Andromeda, which was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award, The International Griffin Prize, and the PEN Open Book Award. Recent collaborative projects include writing a libretto for a Mass commissioned by Trinity Church Wall Street for composer Paola Prestini, and a poem-essay for the exhibition catalog for Toba Khedoori’s solo retrospective show at LACMA. A 2013 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, she is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Newark. She lives in Verona NJ with her family.
“But I’m the Only One” originally appeared in TLR: Women’s Studies