Fifteen minutes later, we finish our drinks and I walk her to the valet. Sometimes, at the end of an evening, I still have feelings for her. It's an old baggage from many previous nights like this one. I consider asking her to say, but that part of us is too far gone. We pulled the ripcord long ago, grabbed silk. Instead I take her in my arms and I kiss Allison, my cocreator, goodbye.
Erik Barmack, The Virgin
But this is not you.
My
You,
the looking glass self’s
You.
No zest for life laughter,
just a subdued,
appreciative one,
punctuated by chauvinistic whiskey
breath.
Something in You is tired:
gunmetal coloured clothing,
a bulletproof heart after
a film,
a book,
an untameable horse lost to the highway
broke
You.
You keep nights deep,
prefer cats to dogs.
Finger nails long when lazy,
fingers that grip
pencils to unwind on canvas
lines of roads
to drive
away
from.
Win
dows.
Resurrecting from Your memories of
book spines and women,
trying to
pace
place
me.
You are beautiful,
child-like
but alive when
broken.
There is life,
death,
a version of hell,
just no prescribed
God.
Aries.
Taurus.
Cancer.
I revive You,
not to space
nor in face,
but to mere moments
of breathlessness
so You can
contrast
what life was before.
Like a woman,
you worry
about weight and the colour of
ties,
its precise knot.
I admire Your white feet,
strong toe bone structure,
blemishes I call
home.
You are the soil
roots cling to.
I will be dead surely
upon erosion.
Sometimes Your heart replaces
Your mind:
at times, a library,
at others, a tomb.
Not everyone understands
Your humour,
not that You care.
Now look in the mirror:
Is this You, you
or just
me?
