communion

by Lizzie McLaughlin & sammy bittman

we’re having communion over meatball pizza,
our fingers slick with grease and our bellies warm with 
dough and lazy laughter—we are in no rush 

i don’t try to remember what we laugh about anymore,
it always escapes me the moment i reach for it
like a bar of soap in the shower
or catching a firefly in a glass—i don’t know which is better. i’m
running out of good metaphors, i tell you, wiping at my mouth
with a Dunkin’ Donuts napkin, my spine running down the center 
of your living room

i always feel heavier here, heavy like finally getting under your bed covers
like i won’t float away like some untethered birthday balloon,
caught in the corner of the ceiling
i feel like a birthday balloon when i’m alone lately, 
i tell you. you tell me i am full of helium among other things—a compromise
everything feels like a compromise lately,
i tell you.

i lie where i can see you, can remind me you exist 
that you’re full of meatball pizza
that we’re walking through March together
the box between us evidence of the evening, 
of all the stupid nothings we got to speak aloud
i imagine our bellylaughs lounging on the cardboard or
lying on the wine-stained carpet between our bodies

i feel like God is here, 
i tell you before i can pull it under my stubborn atheist tongue
like i’m holding something whole and sacred
you laugh and it keeps me glued to the floor. 

i never felt like this when we spoke through our screens
my mind always wandering to the space
around your face, the way our voices would expand and contract 
in the air long forgotten. all of it a tease, an almost-taste,
a barely-there brush of forearms on the street. 

i much prefer your stained sweatpants from 11th grade 
criss-cross-applesauced under you,
the paint retreating from the ceiling in dried purple flakes,
our 16th street scuffed sneakers 
flung off our feet and into the corner.

you slide our phones away from us 
shove a White Claw into my hands—black cherry flavor, my favorite—
especially with pizza, especially on saturdays.
is it really the weekend? the days all take up a similar space in me,
each hour folding into the last like a russian doll.
i can remember saturday 
if i hold something in my hands
a cigarette or a second mug of coffee that you made 
your magic eight ball while you do my makeup 
i can remember saturday
if i spend my words 
instead of saving them for later 
and swallowing them instead

the neighbors serenade us from a story above with 2000s music 
we sit under them, wondering about the freckles on their faces
or the color of their eyes 
everything feels like a compromise lately,
i almost tell you again, but i don’t want to repeat myself tonight
this will never get old,
i say instead.
no it won’t, you say, syllables slotting in between
the music that drips through the ceiling
thank God for communion 
over meatball pizza.
i’ve been missing the sound of our voices 
in a room together.

This collaboration features visual art by Lizzie McLaughlin and poetry by Sammy Bittman in an effort to express the frustrating lack of connection we have all been feeling during the pandemic. These pieces meditate on the idea of almost-communion that we have often had to settle for with each other. Sammy’s poem aims to put words to the social isolation of COVID and the experience of being with someone after being apart for so long. Lizzie’s painting strives to articulate the frustrations of digital relationships and the satisfaction of physical reunion. Through combining narrative and abstract approaches to this experience, Sammy and Lizzie hope to craft a dynamic and unifying experience for the viewer.