Addison Rae Pretends to be My Girlfriend at My Family’s Cookout

I bring pop star Addison Rae as my date to my family’s Fourth of July

cookout. She stands tall in blue jeans that rise up to her silver belly

button piercing and a snakeskin lace bra embroidered with pearls.

My cousins shoot off fireworks, crystallizing words across the sky:

HETERO? / GIRLFRIEND? / MAYBE IN THIS REALITY HE CAN BE STRAIGHT?

all dangle in the afterglow; violent sparks of artillery smack against stars.

I introduce Addison to my Uncle D who puffs out a haze

of blue cigarette smoke: Is this some kind of pop star poetry stunt,

or did you finally move on from all that rainbow bullshit?

Addison doesn’t hesitate as the fireworks pop over the pond.

Well, I found it quite charming that he could recite all of the lyrics

to Aquamarine when he took me on our first date. She presses her rhinestone

nails against my chest and snickers. Besides, her thumb rises

to my lips, He’s a Taurus Sun and a Scorpio Moon—

so yes, he cries a lot, but only in a way that feels expensive.

Her brown eyes fizz like the cold can of Diet Pepsi

that Uncle D cracks open in the midst of this interrogation. He takes a swig,

disfigures into an artificial smile, fully disintegrates by the pond

as he chews on broken teeth and soda. BABY GIRL explodes

in a burst of pink and green and ash-black seeds. Addison and I twirl

our handheld sparklers. A moment of mutiny before my cousin,

named after some martyr in the Bible,

walks in with the woman he married fresh out of high school.

My family claps at their entrance. Plastic plates

and glass bowls of fruit hit the grass to make room

for their hands to pierce the air with applause.

I deflate into the bark of a tree. Addison has to peel me off.

We are so beguiling that we spill out and over everything here.

Like balsamic puddles of deception, we are undeniable.

I vacillate between ataraxia and tragicomedy before she pulls me

to dance on the porch, sipping on spiked fruit punch as messages zip

in midnight air. A firework spirals like a missile past the pond,

unearths the lawn in front of us. I’m jolted

back into a bed beside a man who loves me quietly,

sunlight burning tired eyes through the cracked blinds.

He snores as his parents cook on the other side of the wall,

cedar eyes growing through the cracks of the bedroom door.

I reach for my phone: Addison Rae just shared an Instagram post.

I press my forehead against the bed frame and hope to flatten into it.