Eighty-seven.

If I can't have love, then at least
give me something that feels like a car crash.









[image by Jenna Popoli]

No. 5.

I don't believe in god, I don't believe in romantic love. But I do believe in kindness. Kindness is my religion.

No. 4.

I don't want to want the things that I want.

No. 3.

I am sitting on my couch with an unfinished drawing of an antler wrapped in ribbon and words in my lap, and I say to my friend, "You know, I don't even believe in love anymore. As stupid as that probably sounds." And I think about how often I write about it, how often its themes trickle their way into whatever I draw/paint/make messes out of, and I wonder if I'm a liar. I think that I'm a liar. Either because of what I said to her, or because of what I make, or because I keep telling myself that love is a myth, blah blah biology, pheromones, etc. I love someone. He is about my height and temperament and my stomach hurts in a good-bad way when I think I love you but I don't say it because he doesn't say it and I don't think he loves me back so instead I tell myself that love is body science. How's that for a cop-out explanation? I mean it though, just like I mean it when I say that I want to be wrong.

(See also: Why I have not posted a poem here in over a month.)

Eighty-six.

You know how they say
all the lasting couples look
as though they're related?
I look for your eyes in every girl
I pass on the street,
trying to find your match.
I'll even smile at them
to try to catch one back
so I can inspect the shape
of their teeth.

I crave an adventure,
and I mean that
exactly how it sounds.
Other things.
I crave other things.

This is honesty.
But honesty
is not what you want.

I carry this
like the worst secret
I've ever had.

It was just so impossible,
kissing you, my back against
ocean rock.
The scrapes I took away
by the time the moon
was up. I wonder what your neighbors
thought of me; some mornings
the light had barely
been out.

006.

Art is only dangerous when it's obvious.

Eighty-five.

I do not want you
to remember me.
Even that much
is not deserved.

I want to love
Massachusetts,
and nothing else.