You Were
–Kim Addonizio
the bride of gin, bride
of men you followed home & let fuck you

only to discover that they already had a woman,
a woman who would never know

what you had done with her man, never
know what a shit she was married to, you were

enamored of impulse, tearing flower heads from sidewalk squares
that had converted from cement

to soil. How pure your longing
to be anything other than yourself. How difficult

to extricate the stem, to hold only the scattering,
brooding petals

& how you longed for that stem. Little former whore,
self-you-have-almost-outgrown, think

of Clytia, pining for Apollo, her whole face turned
toward an idea of heaven. Think

of the faces turned toward you now, as you recite
from the myth you have made,

all of them listening
to you. Of all flowers: you.

Photo by Jason Wong on Unsplash

For You
–Kim Addonizio
For you I undress down to the sheaths of my nerves.
I remove my jewelry and set it on the nightstand,
I unhook my ribs, spread my lungs flat on a chair.
I dissolve like a remedy in water, in wine.
I spill without staining, and leave without stirring the air.
I do it for love. For love, I disappear.

Photo by Fabio Ballasina on Unsplash

Verities
–Kim Addonizio

Photo by Kevin Schmid on Unsplash

Forms of Love
–Kim Addonizio
I love you but I’m married.
I love you but I wish you had more hair.
I love you more.
I love you more like a friend.
I love your friends more than you.
I love how when we go into a mall and classical muzak is playing,
you can always name the composer.
I love you, but one or both of us is/are fictional.
I love you but “I” am an unstable signifier.
I love you saying, “I understand the semiotics of that” when I said, “I
had a little personal business to take care of.”
I love you as long as you love me back.
I love you in spite of the restraining order.
I love you from the coma you put me in.
I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone, except for this one
guy.
I love you when you’re not getting drunk and stupid.
I love how you get me.
I love your pain, it’s so competitive.
I love how emotionally unavailable you are.
I love you like I’m a strange backyard and you’re running from the
cops, looking for a place to stash your gun.
I love your hair.
I love you but I’m just not that into you.
I love you secretly.
I love how you make me feel like I’m a monastery in the desert.
I love how you defined grace as the little turn the blood in the
syringe takes when you’re shooting heroin, after you pull back
the plunger slightly to make sure you hit the vein.
I love your mother, she’s the opposite of mine.
I love you and feel a powerful spiritual connection to you, even
though we’ve never met.
I love your tacos! I love your stick deodorant!
I love it when you tie me up with ropes using the knots you
learned in Boy Scouts, and when you do the stoned Dennis
Hopper rap from Apocalypse Now!
I love your extravagant double takes!
I love your mother, even though I’m nearly her age!
I love everything about you except your hair.
If it weren’t for that I know I could really, really love you.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

Sign Your Name
–Kim Addonizio

Photo by Alice Donovan Rouse on Unsplash