This interview was conducted by Katharine Blair from the 23rd to 26th of November, 2022 via email.
The questions and answers appear here in their unedited form.

“you confuse me. i confuse me. when I talk to you, my voice should not waver [...] it is clear i
have let you rot in my ribs for too long.”

the picture that started the fall

There were several times in the reading of ‘you were supposed to be a friend’ that I found myself tempted to back out of the room and leave these two to it. Some interloper’s mixture of shame and respect. We are, I am, perhaps it’s best to speak for only myself, ill equipped to handle such naked vulnerability. Many of us were taught to keep our need close. What’s the benefit in your mind to having the speaker of these poems say all these quiet things loud?

I have always been taught to be small, to be quiet, to be a lady. Within this relationship (I suppose you can call it that), I was able and encouraged to be loud. If I wasn’t loud, if I didn’t ask for what I wanted, I didn’t get it. But I want people to feel these poems, to understand exactly where I was and why I needed to get out of it. I also think it’s important to own your emotions and let others know that they aren’t alone.

Though I can’t say I recommend wearing your heart on your sleeve all of the time, it is something that can be done tastefully with a lot of practice. Further, this collection explains a lot about how I navigate sex and romantic relationships; this one experience changed everything, and this is the only way I could have expressed it.

That vulnerability really came through for me in the phrasing. In a number of places the language slips out of structured poetic and into a straightforward account of what our speaker has suffered and what it has cost. As an audience we’re used to asides but this is a different kind of invitation. A bypassing of thought and onto emotion. The speaker doesn’t care that we’re watching. She knows that in this experience, she isn’t alone. In the writing were you aware that this book had an already primed and understanding audience? Were you writing for you or for all of us trying to navigate as woman in this world?

I was subconsciously aware of there being a potentially understanding audience, yes, but that wasn’t my goal. I wanted to transmogrify my pain into something helpful for my heart. I initially wrote this for me. I hurt so bad and didn’t realize it until I no longer had this person in my life when I needed them, but not before I realized how bad it was for me. A double-edged sword. When I realized how relatable some of the poems were for others, then I suppose I started writing for them, too. But like I said, I am selfish.

It’s wonderful to me that ‘acceptance’ opens with “i love / loving you / but i hate it too.” because i love/hate the poem. Love it for the way it puts words to the all too familiar feeling of wanting and being wanted by someone you know will hurt you. And wanting them still. Hate it for the accuracy of your aim as you push into that bruise. Talk to me a bit about the woman as vassal as we meet her in this poem. How are we taught what our “job” is? What’s the gap between “& i want to make it easy” and “i want easy too”

This is the typical other woman’s tale, isn’t it? Or should I say woman’s tale in general? To make things easier for the men in our lives while swallowing everything we feel? This idea comes from growing up and watching our mothers and grandmothers with their partners or watching the media. I wanted it, whatever it was and whatever we were, to stay as young and as fun as possible as long as possible.

In ‘non-reciprocal’ we find “i get disappointed / when all you feed me is / a shot glass of cum / without the glass / or a warning.” Is there really no warning? Is our speaker at this moment naïve or hopeful? At this moment, are you?

Of course there was a warning, but our speaker is naïve and unwilling to think anything through. Thinking will mean that she will talk herself out of everything and she isn’t necessarily ready to do that. Not at that point.

I am no longer naïve, nor hopeful. The majority of this collection was written in my very early twenties. I am older now, and I am existing in a good space away from him. I am sad sometimes because I do miss the actual friendship, but whose life doesn’t get a little murky?

Was it your intention from the start to spend this long in this subject or did the book evolve from a less deliberate outpouring of thoughts? I’m curious as to the function and cost/benefit of sitting so long in one topic. One that hurts as that focus, in my experience, dials up that sensation of myopia ever the more.

Oh, I wish I was that brilliant, but no, this came from one too many thoughts in this subject. Sitting in it helped younger me move past this dilemma, move past him. I broke my own heart several times writing initial drafts of this book. I’ve since had more poems come to me, but I’m not sure about compiling another manuscript. I’m not in the same place, and I’m sure it would just sound bitter.

Walk me through the process of ‘you were supposed to’. How did these poems get from brain into book? Are there places you’d now choose different? What made you feel confident (or not) in choosing your press?

I’ve been waiting for someone to ask this question! you were supposed to be a friend began as an essay I wrote during undergrad, which was then transformed into a book of letters (not just letters to him, but to several people in my life). Then I came home to poetry, using some of those letters in different form, more thoughts, and more experiences. I don’t think about changing it much, sometimes I just think about form and how nice it would have been to include a letter or two, or create a Dear John letter.

When it comes to the press, Nightingale & Sparrow was the press that did not shy away from the hard stuff. I’d sent my manuscript out to other presses beforehand and got several kind no’s, one press even called it raw and said that I should consider exploring ways to create distance and push my imagery further. That isn’t what I wanted. I wanted it to feel like you’re peeking inside, and I accomplished that.