learning to let go

feels like crying in the library

plump, ripe, drops run down my face

 

competing to see who can fall on my paper

the fastest; I am lost in the race

like a millipede racing against bunnies

 

unmoored, like a captain forced to let go

of the wheel or sudden reticent

habits that touch the back of my neck

 

her name reminds me of mine

in the superficial way, lip gloss on top of

black liner, L as in lost, longing, lingering

 

looking, for something different

letting myself plunge my body into an oil spill

licensing the fallout, crumpled-up pieces of paper

 

where i pretend we are having this conversation

and i can script how it ends

writing our ending like a paper that i cannot bring

 

myself to begin

i feel guilty, staring at white-washed walls

a cubicle suspended in vast space

 

sitting in the basement of the library

inhaling deep breaths and blowing them out

like i have bubble gum between my lips

 

i have been foolish this week

and the one before, and the one before

until it hits late september and suddenly

 

i am enraptured by Ls and Ys

by yearning, learning, looking

loving, lusting, yelling

 

i’ll let myself cry in the library one more time

over L names and L words

i am far too serious and stern

 

for something i cannot even define