Creative | Posted by Emily B on 11/19/2010

Faster Tonight

Girls always believe in

things told in whispers. And the

circuits connecting tangential fields of

stars and fingertips holed

in alphabets slip across rained in minds in a circumcision

of pleasure.
I’ve invented you, carved you out of traffic lights

to become beautiful–what kills me is the way birds always

fly south, down, and the way their beaks preclude

the possibility of kissing.

I’ve invented the colors underneath your clothes and

the things you could say under street lamps, erased a thousand illuminated mosquitos

But this isn’t a drawing class and the symmetry of sidewalks

is sketched to be beautiful only to insects.

Let’s say the stars are in your eyes, because

beauty is always imagined, and the lights are too

dim by the mattress anyway. Let’s say the moon is on our side tonight,

and that dirty dishes don’t exist. I’ll believe it

if you tell me you love me. Because tonight I’ve tested

out loving you, with fingertips but still,

it’s enough,

black and white movies are warning us to stay apart.

And though your grin will open up cologne

and detergent, in the back allied smoke of new beginnings

and the sky will open up to show you its teeth

one day, after you’ve fucked women with names like

fire hydrants and fairytales, and you’ll never think of

desire as a thermometer again,

I’ll be here with the wrong words and apple pies.

All along, we thought the backroads crossing and recrossing

meant love would reverse itself, unscroll itself

But if you look closely, under alphabets and leaves,

maybe one day you’ll find a what if.

You might have guessed, I’ve hidden mine too well for you to reach it.

This one begins with too much sweat and thighs.

Is this the story you want? I always close my eyes. The knob of the door is never spinning, like a neck twisted, the windows never shatter

on queu. The maid never enters to change the sheets, leaving us alone by washing machines

and the others staring sidelong, because condoms will burn

holes in every pocket tonight.

Tonight I’ve thought of things you would imagine only in

puddles or porn stars. Unraveled in the nakedness of

time and maybe you’ll touch me sometime before midnight.

Because tonight I want to see you stirred and blackened, wound

by a thousand death penalties to fasten the night

with longing, and your charm

flashing by populated cities and circuit boards,

I want the magic in you to light up like an X-ray,

the pearly bones of your mannerisms lightning-flashed in to majesty,

Tonight I’ll try to look for you

hanging delicately in flowerpots, on every house, in every street, thrown on the lawns manicured against truth, strung out on

tiny rows of print all calling out

because I’m inventing you in a million different languages

tonight.
Because empty fields, empty beer bottles, empty gazes

emptiness is only a summary of the beauty

of things. And I don’t want the sparknotes version.

Show me unshaven nights and tears over the insignificant.

The footnotes, the fingernail clippings, I want all of it.

And you can assign meaning to the shirts on

our coatrack. Winged on Psychology 101, you can

ride every high horse, darling, because on every axis and in every universe, I’ll give in, sometime, and tell you

I love you.

Rate this post

Read other posts about: Feminism, feminist poetry, Love, love poems, poems, Poetry