1 post tagged “keep the fucking book”

Years from now we will paraphrase our love
to ensure that raw emotion be boxed up and not felt again
in the detail that brings our bodies back to pillows that smell of lingering perfume
and dried flowers on the wall from rendezvous long erased.
Or perhaps I will never mention it again
except in impartial shoulder shrugging at the tables of friends who have never met you,
but remember enough pieces to illicit pain.

I called you my best friend once.
We ate together and shared stolen moments and missed nights of sleep and slept in the same bed with bare skin touching and wrote about each other--you made me cds.
Once, you insisted I read a book
and I loved it.
Then, you found something more interesting, we'll call it a roommate, a substance, an ex-girlfriend and I didn't hear from you, but such was the understanding of this and I didn't place any blame
Until you borrowed me a book one morning on re-entry into my life
and I detested even touching its pages.
We made love and lied
and I went away for a time
to fall in love with someone who said he knew me,
but I knew better and I forgot him too.

Months later you called me and asked me to lie in your bed and forget about him and lie about everything
so I did.
But I couldn't tell you I liked what I read, so we didn't talk about it.
You saw stars and collapsed on your pillow in blissful resolution.
From your pillow with your bedroom eyes and your soft lips you asked me never to leave your side again
and you opened the door and shoved me out
(she might be home soon).

A day ago you made a comment that made my whites red.
And I thought that perhaps you had never been my friend.
I knew.
So I told you the truth and asked you to go away nearly thinking I didn't mean it
until you said something fouler than I care to share
and that I should keep the fucking book.

In truth, dear, you have poor taste,
but mine is poorer.