sometimes
my friends all talk about
a great and glorious white wedding
in their distant future
and later
a brick house
curling smoke escaping the cracks
ivy crawling up the walls
cleanly kept grass and sleek hair
wearing a cotton dress and lipstick
throwing their hair up
indulging in a quick kiss before work.
so I try to imagine you
with your clean-cut hair
and tucked in shirt
telling me I look pretty in my dress
like we share a dog and a bed
and taxes and this leaky roof
and it is all so strange to me.
love isn't supposed to work like that
why does it feel like
to love you
I have to split my soul
rather than share?
I cannot see myself
with half a heart
pretending I like dresses
and your clean-cut hair
confining my soul
to our picket fence and brick house.
so secretly I dream of:
being a young woman
who lives by the sea
who reads books and wears jeans
and throws her hair up and dances
dances anywhere, by the sea
in her room
or in the produce aisle in walmart
this young woman
who has her own dog
who writes books and paints paintings
who lives life as if it is a car race
and loves so fiercely it is impossible
to split her soul.
// I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH YOU ANYMORE, AND IT IS FRIGHTENING AND WONDERFUL ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
