Olive oil for my birthday and other practical things
You cannot sell a poem. But you still have to buy tomatoes, cheese, and garlic to make spaghetti. So you sell your soul, your time, your sanity. A good, warm bowl of spaghetti with chilled gourmet juice brings a little of it back. But mostly, it’s your voice. The way you show up every night. I’d write you a poem, but I don’t think you’ll be causing me heartache. Maybe I’ll write you a funny one. You’re a funny one, I’d say to you between bites of spaghetti I cooked and sips of red wine you picked up on your way over.
You cannot sell a poem. You cannot force a heart to come to you. And you cannot eat tomatoes unless they’re pureed. Fortunately or unfortunately… this remains the way life is.
Please gift me a bottle of olive oil on my birthday next year. I’ll buy you a book of poems you can leaf through when I’m asleep on your chest. The stars, like me, don’t know where this is going. But they linger anyway. Let your fingers trace it—our maybe—on my thigh, my back, my neck. Everywhere you can touch me, everywhere I am tangible. You lead, I’ll follow. And even if we tumble, let it be in play. We have enough scars and enough bruises—let’s give each other different kinds of marks.
Light your cigarette. I’ll light mine.
God, isn’t it a lucky thing you cannot sell a poem? And that I keep finding God in my ramen bowl and you in songs I have never heard. I’m sorry I couldn’t be a fish in this life. But I can still simmer, still salt your nights. And in the next? I’ll be your poem. A poem you cannot sell, you cannot throw, you cannot forget, you cannot replace. One you can never write but will keep rereading forever.
