in the version that you told,
in the story you set
of how we'd never be one of those
over complicated cliches,
we were above all the nonsense
that usually drives apart
the clandestine few
too eager for love
to understand it.

yet here i am,
plugging messages to you in the dark,
too afraid to see what i wrote when i was sober
and wondering how you took it:
3 am, my fears and regrets
and how you poo-poo'd all that bullshit,
how you told me it was silly to
feel so much about something so common.

but was it common to
have your hands grasping corners beneath
my dress? your teeth biting c-shaped patterns across
my shoulder blades?

i want to be more to you than
a "lie still, lady" who let you have her
in the dark only to wake up and ask
"is this awkward?"

i want to be the one
who endeared you to
know-it-all cynicals who traced the shape
of your forearm with her fingernails
when she realized that truth was just
an injustice she told to someone who never believed her anyway
and the only thing legitimate she felt
was the knee between her legs
when you breathed a song down her spinal chord.

07/09/2009

Posted on 07/09/2009
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer