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| {credits: "When the Leather is a Whip" by Martin Espada; Online flirter donated by Stephanie} |
I was hard, once.
So the best I could love
was hard. People felt tweaked when they
hugged me.
I was loud and unrelenting, so my love
was ugly.
She was a torn soul. So her affection
was
sometimes terrible: “I hate you!”
“No I love you! Intensely!”
Everything she felt, she spread
immensely.
They were always drunk. So they got
more drunk together. He died at 51 in a
car crash.
She sold all his things, and drank the
cash.
*
When I was 12, I looked at this picture
Every night, of a woman in her pale
underwear.
Touched myself, felt lightning there.
You might have
asked me at 24, was that love?
And I'd have
laughed you a “No-hh!!” But then again,
at 24, I was a
pompous prick; I wouldn't have dated me then.
For my own, my
ex's, my uncle's ghost's sake—
for all that I want
to embrace and adore—I think I've decided to understand:
my love is only as
good as I am.
My love is as good
as I am.
