what lips my lips have kissed,
and where,
and why;
i know not why.
what arms have held me,
and how tightly,
and how rightly;
i know not why.
he was my friend
of all friends, but
it was futile to be
just friends.
so, i
let him have me,
all of me.
nothing shatters you
like a first love.
he gets all of you,
drags away these
shards of you
that stick in his memory,
of that desperate girl who
only wanted to be loved by him.
but could not trust him,
and rightly so.
for when he has grown sick
of you,
and that girl at the party
was simply easier to be with - -
more vanilla,
less rocky road,
and he never really
loved you at
all --
something is killed
inside of you.
[but i know you did love me and i
know you still think about me,
like i still write about you.]
he was my friend but
we had never been together
alone. i knew that
he wanted all of me.
and i wanted all of him.
yet, i held him,
his body trembling
in my arms,
and he was still too in love
with that other girl
to take advantage
of me.
[he loved this girl that
made him move to the states,
that lived with him and loved him,
and then loved another
and then slept, soundly, next to him
in the darkness.]
i had just met him
and just kissed him
and just fell too fast for this
fast-moving man.
we strolled along the
charles, and he told me i was
beautiful and gave me a flower
like they do in those
idiotic romantic comedies
that we all can’t help but love.
and when he kissed me on
the bridge - -
grabbed my wrist and
****** me into his
lips - -
the city lights
illuminated our
fervent faces,
and then i let him have
most of me,
and at that hollywood moment
i forgot that
men will do these things.
and leave you naked in the night.
and say they’ll call.
[they never do.]
he was just a
flat out
mistake.
there was nothing
poetic
about us.
i do always strive,
in living,
for pure poetry.
three days later,
he was another mistake.
he kissed me and i forced
the passion because i just
wanted to be close to someone
and he was there, and it was easy,
and i never should have asked
him to be with me
that night. i know that
now.
and so, the girl i had been
so long ago
no longer exists.
and thus, i feign my
demeanor,
my kindness to
strangers.
it's simply affectation.
because, from what i’ve
ascertained
in my exceedingly dramatic life,
most people are ****.
no, seriously.
most people
are ****.
and so, why bother with recounting
what loves have come and gone,
for my innocence is now gone.
summer sang in me for a short while,
and these flames extinguished
its voice.
he was exactly like my first love.
an *******.
hilarious, gorgeous,
but an ******* as it was.
and still, i let him have
most of me,
and feigned my amicable demeanor,
and spent the day with him.
and when he left i cried
because i knew what this
had meant nothing to
either of us, and it was
finally
getting to me.
for the next few months
i convinced myself that i could be
alone, that being with someone,
really being with them
would simply
dim the unrestrained sparks inside of me.
thus i realize i stand frozen in the snow - -
in winter stands the lonely tree, which is me.
and i apprehend that the ***** i give
vanish one by one.
and i apprehend that my heart
boughs more silent than ever before.
that is,
until he asks me to grab
a drink or two,
and stay the night at my
place, and says
he's looking for something
casual, at first.
and ***.
and if we were compatible,
he is o p e n
for a relationship.
and i let him have
most of me that
night. and we had
a stressless
non-relationship
for a while.
that is,
until i wanted him
to stay longer than an hour
[which even the *******
deign to do]
and at the drop
of a hat, in his eyes,
i’mattached.
well maybe i am.
but he will
never know that.
because he doesn’t want
me.
nor does he care about
the person, the woman, who inhabits
the body he has been exploiting.
he is the very opposite of poetry.
he is prose.
he is a box
who does not
want to get
attached to
me because
he is scared
as all hell
that maybe
i could be
the one to
turn his prose into
a free verse, to open up his
life to love, but instead
he closeshimselfup
to me, to the notion,
hibernating in his
lovely shell.
the air is awash of ghosts
tonight who tap and sigh,
who long to take
back the body they
so readily seized when
it was open for them. they
await my reply. but in my
heart remains a quiet pain
for all of these lads who
will remain now
unremembered and who
will no longer turn to me
at midnight with a cry,
convinced my disguise is
who i am.
[what they know won’t
hurt them.
but it absolutely will
hurt me.]
Response to "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)" by Edna St. Vincent Millay