Friday, December 4, 2015

Letters to My X-5

                                   A Thing or Two About Karma

When I stole away
a boy from your arms
I was a little girl:
pig tails, blue ribbons,
wide grin, clean dress.
I looked at your
envying eyes
and stuck
my sullied tongue
out at you.

You walked away.

Now someone else
has stolen
my candy man.




image from blackgirllonghair.com

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Letters to my X-4

I have what I call lover's fright. It's a disease. You usually get it when someone breaks up with you off-guard. As in, you were doing everything right: sending the good morning messages--sometimes, calling, asking about his great-great grandfather, writing him poems, buying him gas, and then all of a sudden, he breaks up with you.

That's not even the disease yet. It's how you get it. And so for your next relationship, you're just waiting to be heartbroken. Not that you want to, but that the guy is giving you the same signs as the previous one. He's doing the ignoring after you send him a message at 7:00am in the morning and he's always "busy" doing I don't know what, maybe herding some cattle. But mostly, he promises he still cares and then you really don't know what's going on. So you want to call up your x and say "you damn boy of a human being, see what you have done to my heart and my brain." But your sisters in the sisterhood group keep telling you you are in control of your mind, whatever goes on in your environment is you and you own your space, and you want to say how bad you feel for not being able to control yourself the first day you met him.


You need someone to blame. You have blamed yourself enough and he still hasn't returned, so you are blaming God for not pinching your neck or causing you to go blind when you first met. Does it even make sense? Can he return the love? There should be a way to return love if someone does not fully complete the love journey. Say I came to you and asked you to love me. I would give you an empty bottle and you will fill it with your love. But you will also give me a bottle so I can fill it with my love. But it will hurt both of us. It won't only hurt me to love. So that when you leave we are even.

Lover's fright is curable. No one ever dies from it unless you give your lover your heart for a heart transplant. And please forget what they say about time healing all wounds. It does not heal anything unless you are willing to be healed. And I am willing to be healed. And I am willing to love again. And I am willing to forget again. And I am willing to ask about someone's great-great- grandaddy!

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Letters to my X-3

This Love Thing

I have written "I love you"
three times and erased it
three more times

not because I am not sure
that I love you
but because I am sure
that I am going mad

and mad people love
with the energy of a bullet,
they like to pierce
into the veins,

meander through thoughts,
pace around your eyes

interrupt your speech.

Do not confuse this
with being madly
in love with you.


Tuesday, December 1, 2015

One Month Later

Here's a continuation to the series Letters to my X

When I think
about falling
in love
I dream of daises
blushing
and water lilies
running their feet
into green fungus
I think of you
and the craziness
of your hair
how I want to kiss
and straighten it
with my lips.

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