A poem for You, or, Why it just wouldn't work out.
You.
Oh, you.
You, don't do this to me.
What if I wrote you a poem
like a veiled woman -- identity hidden --
her face wrapped in simile-scarves
body bundled in allegory,
the virgin, the bride, the goddess, the freak accident victim
whose face we cannot hope to catch a glimpse of
but we wonder
and you would wonder
but you would not know.
We smiled at each other once in the hallway
and my mind and my heart exploded
into fire and music.
Yes. You.
Do you forget so easily?
Was it an accident on your part,
a tic, a misfired synapse?
What if I wrote you a poem
like a wound, bandaged
in so many layers of metaphor
you'd never know it was there
it wouldn't even leave a scar.
Not for you. Not for me.
But art hurts.
Lying in my bed
my feverish brain kept spinning
thin air into straw into gold,
writing our story
I tried my hardest to make it beautiful
but it ended badly, and
the more I tried to edit
the more we spiraled downward.
I loved you until I could have hated you.
You held me in ways I couldn't hold myself.
You told me Ophelia dreamt of an orgasm.
You told me we are caged by our selves,
that people never change.
Well, there were "people", I finally realized,
and then there was "you", and
you were not a "person", you were a --
I didn't even catch the word but it
made me consider bulimia for a second,
that's how nauseating the term was.
Anyway, you were fully certain
of having "changed", but it was
a brilliant act of self-deception
a smashing show of hypocrisy
and it had the potential to be terribly
comedic if you weren't so
venomously serious.
Well, it's too late now.
I've been set in my ways,
and I've set you in yours, with you
crumpling me in your hands like the
phone number of a slutty girl scrawled
on a gum wrapper.
I don't know why you make me
make us fall apart so ruinously.
I don't know what your problem is.
Fuck, I don't even know you.
But I know that I hate you now
yes! you, a perfect stranger
I hate you and I won't smile at you again
even if you smile at me
a second time.
Oh, you.
You, don't do this to me.
What if I wrote you a poem
like a veiled woman -- identity hidden --
her face wrapped in simile-scarves
body bundled in allegory,
the virgin, the bride, the goddess, the freak accident victim
whose face we cannot hope to catch a glimpse of
but we wonder
and you would wonder
but you would not know.
We smiled at each other once in the hallway
and my mind and my heart exploded
into fire and music.
Yes. You.
Do you forget so easily?
Was it an accident on your part,
a tic, a misfired synapse?
What if I wrote you a poem
like a wound, bandaged
in so many layers of metaphor
you'd never know it was there
it wouldn't even leave a scar.
Not for you. Not for me.
But art hurts.
Lying in my bed
my feverish brain kept spinning
thin air into straw into gold,
writing our story
I tried my hardest to make it beautiful
but it ended badly, and
the more I tried to edit
the more we spiraled downward.
I loved you until I could have hated you.
You held me in ways I couldn't hold myself.
You told me Ophelia dreamt of an orgasm.
You told me we are caged by our selves,
that people never change.
Well, there were "people", I finally realized,
and then there was "you", and
you were not a "person", you were a --
I didn't even catch the word but it
made me consider bulimia for a second,
that's how nauseating the term was.
Anyway, you were fully certain
of having "changed", but it was
a brilliant act of self-deception
a smashing show of hypocrisy
and it had the potential to be terribly
comedic if you weren't so
venomously serious.
Well, it's too late now.
I've been set in my ways,
and I've set you in yours, with you
crumpling me in your hands like the
phone number of a slutty girl scrawled
on a gum wrapper.
I don't know why you make me
make us fall apart so ruinously.
I don't know what your problem is.
Fuck, I don't even know you.
But I know that I hate you now
yes! you, a perfect stranger
I hate you and I won't smile at you again
even if you smile at me
a second time.