if she had come to you like a gypsy,
if she had spread it before you like cards,
would you have surrounded your bed
with a dozen black candles
and tried to rub the lines from your palms?
no. you would have lied still and waited for it
to hit you like a wave. you could not have missed
the ride through texas, stoned, Sylvia Plath on your lap
and your whole self pressed up against the glass, the squeeze
of her hand pulling you away from the shriveled winter desert.
and the bedroom you spraypainted gold with a sundress tied
hopelessly around your nose and mouth. the mexico-bound hippies
who stayed on your floor for a week would laugh
when you blew gold snot from your nose and you worried,
imagining your life span stunted 10 to 15 years.
but that room, Tucson sun lit the paint and maid it glow,
and you lived there, beneath the ceiling you stenciled with stars
and half- moons and sometimes
she would get stingy with her life
and would tend to herself like a lover and
you would watch jealously as she rubbed her skin
with aloe from the backyard
and you would be jealous when you fought
and she would take the car to the desert
to be alone with the saguaros while you
were left to wander the dusty city,
finding solitude in the lot behind the frat house
were you would smoke cigarettes and write
in the diary she will later read because she can’t ask you
how you feel but she needs to know. hold ... don’t let nostalgia knock you down.
when you split up she will have a boyfriend
who will inevitably make her pregnant, but you will have
a city full of women who have little need for boys.
she will keep the cat who slept with his slinky body
curled to the curve of your belly, but you will get
her best friend, he thinks she’s lost her mind.
she will get the car you bought and tried to learn to drive,
she will get the futon, paid for with your mother’s money.
she will get the two hundred dollar tent you meant to camp in.
she will get Tucson, that ghost town, and all the heat
her dry skin can take.
you will get a duffle bag full of clothing you’re not sure you like,
a sleeping bag
and a pillow stolen from cape cod motel. stop.
don’t be bitter. and don’t go to nightclubs.
you’ll never find a worthy lover there.
learn from your mistakes: the one who hung pictures of supermodels
above her bed like some psychotic adolescent – cindy,
Naomi, Tatiana, Claudia, iman, they
watched with smoldering eyes and pouting lips
as she wrapped her legs around you.
and the one who danced like you were lovers already,
how she took your hand like it was a leash,
pulled you into the bathroom and kissed you exactly how
you wanted to be kissed. you thought the boy on her couch
was a fag. you thought the men’s cloths in the closet
were hers. stop. when you realize
how long it’s been since you have felt the body
of a new woman beside you, do not let it depress you.
let it inspire you.
you might wonder where 13 months of monogamy has gotten you.
you might go back to the beginning before you thought
you loved her, when you went home with someone else.
you were so brave. the woman was older and exciting
but in the morning her sleeping weight made you legs fall asleep.
and you wished it had never happened. stop. never regret anything.
if you had let her buy your love with breakfast and drink tickets
were would you be right now? you can’t even imagine.
you are right where you should be.
now act like it.By. Michelle Tea
Myspace Layouts
Myspace Codes
Myspace Generators
Myspace Backgrounds
