Love poem: Passenger door // grocery store

Love poem: Passenger door // grocery store

Fresh lint from the dryer
My niece is crying
Because a boy pulled a baby-pink ribbon straight from her hair
& I told her, don’t worry
He didn’t take anything real from you
The most genuine things are
More intangible than they seem

So now I’m at the laundromat
Watching my lavender and velvet blanket dry
Something too delicate of material to end up in this white, vacant space
But I have already been charged
For a thousand liar’s crimes
Not my own, but it’s easy to take the blame
When the minds of the reckoners aren’t something you can change

Love poem: Passenger door // grocery store [continued]

I used to dream about being held
By someone so powerful
That they could both start and end bar fights for me
Think I was in my early twenties
So my wildest visions
Would make little sense to someone truly thinking of settling down
You have to act your age
In this kind of upscale town

Then you handed me a receipt
Me, counting your naturally full lashes
How strong they must be and if only
Mine were too
To resist my pulling them out
When I both do and don’t have free time
Which my mother would say is a crime
But laugh with me thereafter
Because true love doesn’t see you in black or in white
Genuine love both does and does not fight

Love poem: Passenger door // grocery store [continued]

Your voice was alarming
Because it began softening
Every tense fibre locked and chained to itself within my body
I warm my shivering shoulders with how hotly
My breath is on evenings
Like this one, in which I could not care less about who or what surrounds you and me
They are just bodies
And you are warm nectar
That only the most tender of creatures know how to find

I showed up on time
Your shift is almost over
But I am too shy
So, I take my bags
Spill a few things, say it’s alright
“You don’t have to help me”
(Oh man, but I want you to)
Pretend I have plans when you ask what I’m doing
(I am such a poor liar,
the truth practically stained on my teeth)

I want you to go sit in the driver’s seat
Open the passenger door for me

Come home and help me with the groceries

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Love poem: Fell back in love with me

Love poem: Fell back in love with myself

I am, a dandelion that’s losing its ligules
A dandelion on the street
Stepped on, on repeat – bracing the wind, but falling apart
Missing my roots
Crying because I won’t be in a vehicle with my father ever again
But the koala-grey sidewalk embraces me like its only friend

Gasping, breaking, compact but fragile – for eternity
Not asking anyone to save me
Because rap songs taught me that’s commonly dismissed
Neglected and disposed of
(Why am I so delicate?)
I breathe it and I love it, but God please help me, I’m exasperated
I wear my orthodox cross like it’s the most expensive diamond given to a queen
Nobody ever suspects a thing

Love poem: Fell back in love with myself (continued)

A guy once bought me, the most beautiful fiddle leaf fig tree
That I picked out, of course
Girl knows her houseplants
My bedroom lacked the sunshine to keep my baby alive
I wept on the floor staring at its fallen brown pieces
Feeling like I was one of them
Breaking for eternity
Shrivelling up and no longer green, but serene
I swallow the ground whole with my desire to love more than I ever have before
Time, and time, again.

You know, a girl, who truly loves flowers
Never “gets used” to receiving them
Each time is special, savoured, like those commercials with women and chocolate
I stop walking every few feet to capture a flower
One day, a boy said to me, “do you have to stop every time”
That was the end of him and I
Of course, I do
That’s what happens when you’re in love with white, pink, red, yellow, and blue
The colours dash through your mind when you’re not scrolling on your phone
Remembering the hydrangeas from Venice Beach
The sunset blooms at the rose garden at the museum where you spent your birthday in your own solid company
Breaking in composite structures
Swallowing the rose petals on the ground

Love poem: Fell back in love with myself (continued)

The dandelions on the street
Say something on repeat

They love me, they live through me
They engulf quite the vast part of me
And every piece of their frail self that flies away with the breeze
Becomes deeply embedded within me
And I love it, like cotton
I roll it, like marbles
If I’m ever, forgotten

I hope botany never is

Love poem: Fell back in love with myself (continued)

I know a girl
That will never “get used” to flowers
So endlessly abundant but single-handedly make this life worth it

They love me, they love me
They live right through me
I walk on the concrete
Looking for myself

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