Daily Poem: Forty-One ~ Cassandra Warren
Forty-One
~ Cassandra Warren
You disappoint him. He says
this isn’t true but you know him now.
You finally sleep well next to his shape
and he often wanders into your day
and night dreams. He isn’t demanding
and you are always sorry.
Sorry that you can barely read in front of him,
sing in front of him, play your guitar
as clearly as you do when you’re alone.
In some ways, these are metaphors.
In some ways, these are not.
Maybe the perception is wrong.
You’ve been writing for a long time.
You break your lines better,
say things without saying them,
but it gets jumbled up
before it reaches the receiving point.
Sometimes in your head it gets so loud
that you have to turn off
all the lights. When his hand
slides across your stomach, when he kisses
your forehead, or touches you in public.
Never when it’s lips on your neck
or fingers lingering on the inside
of your thigh. That is different.
Something more animal.
–
A weekend away is not enough.
You call your life “mediocre” and state
that you are “wasting approximately fifty percent,”
although the actual number would probably be quite higher
if calculated correctly.
Make a list of cities again.
Pittsburgh
Portland
Providence
Philadelphia
Boston.
Add Seattle and New York for the unrealistic hell
of it. Keep a suitcase packed
under your bed at all times.
Don’t own any pets, keep any men
or buy any expensive furniture,
for these things are hard to leave behind.
–
You used to write about more interesting things.
Mostly larger messes, ones that weren’t
about you exactly, but someone
poured them over you anyway.
Headlights in trees, lakes without bottoms,
the body your mother found
in the backyard, and then
the one they never let you see.
These are better stories.
Less selfish, in a way.
Anyway, the point is, somewhere
along the way you stopped believing
that you deserved anything.
There is little left
to elaborate on.
Pure Gold !