It usually takes about 5 minutes for me to blackout
while sitting on the black leather on the black tar
going 60 fully there but not quite fully aware.
This is my third autopilot and so far
I like her the most because she has the biggest eyes
though she sometimes glitches and needs to be reminded
that even at a beety red light there’s no need to
jot down an idea for a poem, or even world peace
(The two are not the same.)

So while the road lines melt into a
side swept long exposure dizzy photograph, but
like the ones that move in the Harry Potter movies
and I assume the books too, the books I would
definitely like but probably will never actually read,
the photographs like living live photos seemingly
sweet memories coming to life but in reality
a horrifying knock off of the fly on the wall
except this fly could be your late grandma
in portrait mode or an angsty teen musician
stuck in a teeny-bopper magazine poster, and
as I am seeing all of these animated flipbooks
I realize, just maybe, in another life I was
definitely a Cher imposter but with a
better impression than she herself.

Then a singing sea nymph and even those cursed by her,
one of Cleopatra’s snakes, stuck in a life
without limbs, let alone thumbs
but a mouth to devour and ultimately,
importantly, perfect teeth.
I am not fit to be a pet still though, to be forced to
always listen and never speak never fully
understood, except, not being a pet
doesn’t even mean I have done or
not done those things I am just always
done and not done, undone and now done
with this drive and unsure of
just quite how I made it here, I believe, alive.

“i hate sweets”
you’d once said
being offered a cake
and having none of it
for you did not like the taste

i wondered why that was
and came to the conclusion
that perhaps the reason
was because you had known
the taste of sweetness for too long
the people around you
they looked at you
talked to you
and they were
too sweet
tooth-achingly so

and maybe that was why you loved me
because i was far from sweet
i was sour
slightly painful
i've been told i'm unpleasant (not by you, of course)

an acquired taste, you'd said

"not unpleasant," were the words you whispered
smile crooked
eyes mellow
relaxed
"just a bit different"

i wondered if you loved me
because i was "me"
or because i was "sour"
because i wasn't "sweet"

so i
covered myself
in candy,
asked you what you think

"my dear,"
you smiled
"i wouldn't care
how 'sweet' you are
for i would still love you"

"but you hate sweets" i countered,
and you
laughed at me
"i also hate the sour taste of lemons," you said
"and you're the most sour person on this earth"

Did the girth of my thighs and the way they
Run this earth shaking, quaking, leaving
Fireprints on their paths behind,
Scare your flammable, charred-bark colored eyes
Did my five feet and ten inches fingers toes
Two filled lungs feeding heart and brain
Tower over your equal height and
Half sized mind, was the thought of a
Home between my legs really too much to
Believe is that why you felt the need to
Break and enter when the door was locked
Windows bolted and shut, the word
“No”
Out of my mouth and out of my gut
Do you kiss your mother with the same mouth
That burned holes in my back
Do you shake your father’s hand with the same hand
That tried to rip me in half

I am still here still tall and still strong
Still flying beyond the foulness of
Your being still seeing beauty
Gracing this earth and this skin
I am in, ivory and speckled and
Tenderly taught, thick to the core
I am so much more
I am
Too woman for you

i’ve given up on days that begin in late afternoon,
skipped breakfast and lunch,
days that fade slowly and end with
****** cut-out holes in eyelids because
the second i close them and it all goes black,
every moment with you comes back
played on fast-forward, the memories moving so quickly
that both our faces are blurred
and it feels like everything i’ve ever felt for you
is overflowing the tub, filling the washroom with
suds that take forever to melt

i’ve given up on those days.

i’ve traded them for ones that begin with
sunrises instead of sunsets,
days that are spent falling forward
instead of trying to chase the past, and i don’t
look back and see something broken, or
something that was better off left unopened

i look back and see our bodies so close together
that you can’t tell where yours begins and mine ends,
i see my heart that grew twenty-three times its size,
i see you and me wrapped up in something that
i didn’t know existed outside of blurry 35 mm
and overdue and falling-apart library books
that sit on the nightstands of middle-aged women
who are bored with their lives

and i’m just so happy i got to love you at all.

but i’ve folded up all the days spent with you
and taped them in the messy pages of my journal
and now i’m running into the sun,
running away from every lie that’s trying to
wedge its way in between my ribs,
running in the opposite direction of words like "regret"
and any feeling that insists that none of it was worth it

because all of it was worth it.

every moment we were together pumps
through my veins, and it will always be there;
it will be there when we’ve both graduated,
when you move out west,
when you kiss your family goodnight,
when you sit in your backyard with tears
in your eyes because you’ve lived a life
you are proud of

it will be there when i finally make it to new york city,
when i kiss someone who isn’t you,
when i find the answers you inspired me to search for,
when i sit on my rooftop with tears on my cheeks
because i’ve lived a life fuller than i could’ve ever imagined

and you and i will live these lives apart,
we’ll move on and forget what it felt like
to wake up beside one another;
we’ll find what we’re looking for elsewhere
and we’ll understand why this all had to happen the way that it did

but what we had will always exist somewhere,
in rotting apples and old mail and unplayed mix CDs,
in mosaics that line the city streets, in sirens and
red and white flashing lights that shine through
your window while you are asleep

you and i were magic,
we always will be.