Keep The TV By Em Marinelli

     Igor Spasic CC




Keep The TV

     When you moved out for real, I gave you space to pack your things. I wasn’t there to see what you packed, but I could picture it; hand-me-down designer jeans, board shorts, and Von Dutch T-shirts shoved into trash bags. I imagined Kierkegaard, Rilke and your feminist scholarly books; Judith Butler and Pat Califia sliding around in a cardboard box in the back of your Ford F-150. Baseball hats with sport team names, stacked in the front seat. You always had some kind of blue truck. 
      I loved you for that. 
      Keep the TV, you told me last week, even though we’d bought it together. I didn’t respond. I didn’t care about the TV. 
     The first thing I noticed when I came back to what-had-once-been our studio apartment:
The midday sun cutting through what-had-once-been the slats of our Venetian blinds—casting variegated shadows on the carpet, like jail bars. 
       The first thing I thought: You aren’t really gone. Maybe you’d just left to buy weed, or grab a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck at Trader Joe’s in Westlake.
       The first thing I did: Pull out what-had-once-been our sex toy box, from underneath what-had-once-been our bed. I don’t know why I did this. I took inventory. Most things were still there; nipple clamps, vibrators of various sizes, a flogger, a tall bottle of Silk lube. I kept looking. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. Until I saw it.
         You had taken your cock with you. 
        Solid purple. Silicone. Soft. Dreamy. It fit perfectly inside me. We picked it out at Good Vibrations in Berkeley. We found a harness that you liked. We bought a cock ring with a vibrator on top, too. But I didn’t need it. Your cock was plenty. It was better than any fleshy cock I ever had. When you fucked me, it was like being fucked for the first time. 
         And now it was gone. 
         Blood drained from my face, my palms became tropical, my mouth went cotton. 
         I paid for it. We got it together. It was special.
       It’s not like I would’ve ever worn it, with you or with anyone else. The years I spent being your girlfriend helped me understand who I really was: a femme to your butch, a bottom to your top. 
         Your cock was always yours, not mine. 
         It was part of you. 
       The truth: I wanted that part. I wanted to possess you. To control who you fucked. To own you and be owned by you. To be the only one. With your cock gone, I knew you really were too. 
        Drowning in Jack Daniels and Lay’s Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips, I called my sister. I wail-cried, I staccato-sniffled, I alcohol-mumbled. I told her I hated myself for all the lies, for the shitty things I said and for the things I didn’t say. I asked her to sing Grease 2 songs with me. 
         She did.
      I turned on the TV I didn’t care about. You’d left it tuned to BBC. You loved European history and trusted the Brits as a solid news source. 
        Another reason I loved you.
        I couldn’t bring myself to change the channel. 
      What was on: An entire season of a British reality show where they cast the next Joseph in a West End production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Perfect. I wasn’t religious, but I was a true musical theater gay. It was like the TV just knew.
       Lee Mead, who appeared destined to be cast as Joseph, was the perfect distraction. He made my heart skip. His curly dark hair made me almost forget your blonde butch military cut. His rendition of “Paint It Black,” made me almost forget how you sang ‘70s rock. His baby-face made me almost forget that extra soft part of your left cheek that I touched at night.
        If I could fall in drunk-love with Lee, maybe I could erase you completely. 
       When he sang “Any Dream Will Do,” the big finale, I sang along with him, The colors faded into darkness. I was left alone. I sloshed my bottle around like a drunken sailor.
      Tears ran. And ran. They spilled off my chin, and onto my clavicle. I shook my head from side to side, trying to stop them. Strands of my hair swished over the wetness like windshield wipers. I didn’t want to cry about you anymore. 
      I stood in the middle of what-had-once-been our living room, picturing myself on stage with Lee. I imagined lights bouncing off each color of his magical coat ruby, olive, violet, fawn. I sang as loud as I could. The world and I, we are still waiting (ah-ah-ah).  I made sure the ah-ah-ah’s were pitch-perfect, ethereal sounding. I don’t know if anyone heard me. 
       I curled up on what-had-once-been our couch. The one we found on Craigslist. I laid my head on a cheap IKEA throw pillow and hugged my mostly empty potato chip bag to my chest. I spooned it, the way you used to spoon me. Only this time I was big spoon.
     I watched other contestants try to beat Lee for a chance to be Joseph, but I knew he would win, no question. His dimples alone were enough of a reason. But in the end it was his voice that did it: Broadway tenor vibrato, gorgeous, and soulful. Full of possibility, open, expansive. 
      Like the world was his, only he didn’t quite know it yet. 

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Em Marinelli (they/them) is a genderqueer Virgo, psychotherapist, professor and writer. Em is the author of Comfort Sequels: The Psychology Of Movie Sequels from the 80s and 90s (Simon & Schuster, 2024). Their essays have appeared in Alan Squire Publishing and The Blue Rose Magazine. They are a Tin House and Lambda Literary Fellow. They host theTwin Peaks Tattoo Podcast and enjoy unbelievable amounts of artificial butter on their popcorn.