You are 22. Snow on the cars; ice on the streets. She came out of her house at 4 a.m., barefoot, in a nightshirt, and kissed you for hours. She stood on your boots, her hands clasped at your neck, and kissed you.So lithe you could lift her.
You write heartbreak and violence. Poems where the butterflies devour one another.
Stories where the girl is a livid bruise. Nameless. Screaming.
In the mornings, at her house, the woman makes you pancakes, pours applesauce over them. Plays you a song you have never heard:
Think I’m going for a walk now
I feel a little unsteady
I don’t want no one to follow me
Except maybe you
You are 25. Fond of Jameson. Numb. Curious about everything except consequences.
You write murder. You write failure. You write breakups and think you are talking about love.
You open marriages. Get a letter from a wife written in blood.
Still, the woman visits you. You see Ani DiFranco at Bumbershoot, and she sings Untouchable Face. The crowd agreeing FUCK YOU! in dozens of choruses. Hours from now, you’ll learn that the woman is done sleeping with you.
I could make you happy, you know
If you weren’t already
For a while, you hear that song in every bedroom. The women singing it quietly as though they already know the mess you’ll make. But at least the show’s a musical. The most savage lines lyrically rendered.
You write the girl livid. The girl bruised. The girl named.
Loved? Do you write her loved?
Not yet.
First you are sick. Cut open. Masses of polyps sliced away. Reconstruction deep into the muscle.
What if you are the only one who loves the girl? What if you write her and that is love?
You are 29. The child handed to you mid-squall. His furious face beautiful and familiar. You feed him. You lean your face down to his and sing. Sway and sing and mother.
Tell you the truth I prefer the worst of you
You write a girl so loved.
You write a girl so loved.
You write a girl so loved.
You are 35, opening the door for a woman who keeps looking away from you. For days, your whole life has been texting.
There’s a changing constellation
A woman so loved.
You are 44. A woman so loved.
You narrate yourself inside the story. Not the observer of two women stepping into the kitchen for wineglasses. You slip her leather jacket from her shoulders. You lean into her hips.
Maybe they were all love songs.
Maybe there’s no mess without beauty. Maybe you got to look into all of these faces just to hear the singing.
Who am I?
Somebody just tell me that much.
Maybe you wrote yourself well.
Maybe you recognized her in the doorway.
Maybe they were all love stories.
Maybe there’s no beauty without mess.
So beautiful.