I’m looking for love online. I’m moaning about it like all the rest. I’m meeting my friends for coffee on Sunday and talking about that date on Friday, that guy from May that I won’t shift, that person from 19 that I’m comparing everyone too. I’m eyes glazed over playing pool drunk and thinking that’s emotion. I’m kissing and feeling nothing. I’m hitting my forehead with my hand when I think about it, when I told him he made me dizzy in the pub basement on date one. It all went no where.
People are always going on about the need to be alone and I get that I do. After my last heartbreak, I was too sick with sadness to even think about anyone else. I was a nun for months, worshipping at the alter of lost love, worshipping past figures like gods. I’ve done that over and over but love always comes back. Eventually you clock hot people on the street again and introducing yourself to new people doesn’t feel tiring, it feels thrilling. “I’ve spent a lot of time on my own,” I say as part of my speech. “I lived alone a lot, I’ve been single most of the time. I think I’ve done my time being alone.” Now I want love. I want love.
So I’m looking for it online. I’m being witty on text. I’m paying for the second round, I’m putting my chin in my hands and looking up like a doll. I’m saying it’s fine, I’m crying after the party. I’m looking for love and finding something casual. I’m looking for love and holding hands with their ex girlfriend’s ghost when they’re not over her but promise, they want me too.
“I don’t want to be cool, I want to be known!” I said down the phone and then hung up to write it down. I’m looking for love and finding material. I’m writing in my diary like Joan Didion, researching the depths of myself in the shallow of them. I’m looking for love and getting 10 lines instead.
The body keeps the score
Gained more weight
Than he made me lose
Unwillingly in round two
Are we counting up best ofs?
Best offs.
I’m kissing another
And worrying about my body.
Secrets in its craters,
Written in red dots on cheeks.
I want to say I’m a book
And they’re always blind,
Skim reading when I want analysis,
Or he’s staring into my eyes
And asking me straight, right when I look away.
I feel my stomach hold itself.
I feel my arms pressing my top.
I feel too alive.
I forgot what I said on Friday,
It’s Sunday
And exhaustion is existential
Once he’s left and the headache hits
And the smell of skin is stale.
I have no answers,
Only tea, a biscuit
And another question
Of if I should’ve.
2 missed calls
You’re getting over someone her,
I’m getting over you.
I think silence cuts the line,
You think nothing.
Sorry you missed this,
Add two xx’s.
I read myself into it
When I know I’m not there at all.
Date two
You cast love as a wide net.
“You mean so much to me”
On date two and feel at my wrist,
Look for a pulse.
Look in pupils like mirrors,
Look in pupils for a better self,
Find an angel naked in there.
I’m laid on white linen,
Saying “you’re so sweet”.
“You know what I mean”
Was so heavy at midnight.
I heard the prayer within,
Sat on the confessional of knees, thighs.
But I’m light in the morning,
I’m new, I’m hope.
I catch myself there as you say bye,
And I think I saw god too
In the vision of a new day,
Now known skin, reciprocal compliments
And my penchant for cheek kisses,
Neck kisses, kisses.
Did you know I’d hear that exhale in the hall?
Thoughts in those slowed footsteps?
I’ll be a contender, I’m sure,
I’ll be something.
“Thinking of you”, four hours wait time,
I type, “you too”.
I wish I saw myself how you seem to, stranger
For once it’s too soon to say,
If I feel the same.
Laundry
My bedsheets are stained with cherry and pen.
No one cares about me
Enough to hear that poetry.
No one knows me well enough
To not be peeled off instantly,
Washed incisively.
I resent the smell of him
Lingering
When I can’t say anything
Without feeling I’ve said too much.