it was the year we woke up
holding hands like otters do.

she mentions i’d look cute with a gap,
so i stop wearing my retainer altogether.

when she tells me that she loves me and
that she has a lying problem on the same day,
i know i am completely and utterly fucked.

she makes me watch star wars with her,
and then she doesn’t even watch it,
she watches me watching it, to
make sure i’m reacting properly.

i read her daily horoscope
to her as she gets ready;
even though she doesn’t
believe in it, she still tries
to act interested in astrology
and all of that other hippy
dippy trippy shit i believe in
but can’t prove.

i fell in love with her quickly,
the way she wanted me to.

all skin and poem and diet coke,
listening to regina spektor on her
bed as she calls me baby girl
and plays with my hair.

when i find a boy’s hair in
the rough drafts of her
poems, i pretend not to.

when i ask her what she loved
about him, she says, “i know
this is bad, but he was so terrible
to me that i never ran out of things
to write about.” - i wonder if she
wants a lover or a writing prompt.

“there’s a certain high to hating yourself,”
she told me once, i try not to point out
the irony as she tells me how toxic our
relationship is between drags of her cigarette

when she takes me on a date
to the rink that she used to
skate at with her last love,
i do not sob.

when she apologizes for the way
that he is still the spare key to heart,
i assure her that it is no problem.

i try not to be jealous of his sheer good
fortune. i do not hate him for
becoming the flood in my backyard,
i do not hate myself for falling in love
with a drought dressed like a girl;
but i do hate myself for falling in love
with the feeling of being loved.

years later, she is drunk when
she tells me, “loving you is the
kindest thing i almost did.”

and how impossible it is,
to train the heart to sit.

the last time she shouts at me,
my name foams madly at her mouth,
she tells me, “i don’t know how to
love anyone with my whole being,”
and all at once i feel so stupid
and so small as i tell her,
“well, i don’t know how to not.“

in an effort to get her to stay,
i promised her, “i will be what
ever you want me to be.“

she tells me that is the problem.