It was the year we woke up holding hands like otters do
she mentions I'd look cute with a gap
So I stopped wearing my retainer all together

When she tells me that she loves me
and that she has a lying problem on the same day
I know I am completley and utterly fucked

She makes me watch Starwars with her
and then she doesn't even watch it
she watches me watching it
to make sure im reacting properly

I read her daily horoscope to her while she gets ready
even though she doesn't believe in it
she still tries to act interested in astrology
and all that other hippy dippy trippy shit
I believe in but can't prove

I fall in love with her quickley
The way she wanted me to
All skin and poems and diet coke
listening to Regina Spector on her bed
while she calls me baby girl
and plays with my hair
When I find a boys hair in the rough of her poems
I pretend not to
when I ask her what she loved about him
She says "I know this is bad but he was so terrible to me
that I never ran out of things to write about"

I wonder if she wants a lover or a writing prompt

There is a certain high to hating yourself
She told me once
I try not to point out the irony
As she explains how unhealthy our relationship is
Between drags of her cigarette

When she takes me on a date to the same rink
she use to roller skate at with her last love
I do not sob

When she apologises for the way he is still
The spare key to her heart
I assure her it is no problem

I try not to be jealous of his sheer-good fortune
I do not hate him for becomming the flood in my backyard
I do not hate myself for falling in love
with a drought dressed like a girl
but I do hate myself for falling in love with feeling loved
Years later, She is drunk when she tells me
"loving you is the kindest thing I almost did"
and how impossible it is to train the heart to sit

The last time she shouts at me
my name foams madly at her mouth
She tells me "I dont know how to love anybody with my whole being all at once"
I feel so stupid and so small as I tell her
Well I don't know how to not

In an effort to get her to stay
I promise her, I will be whatever you want me to be
She tells me, " that is the problem"