MY WORST HABIT
My worst habit is I get so tired of winter
I become a torture to those I’m with.
If you’re not here, nothing grows.
I lack clarity. My words
tangle and knot up.
How to cure bad water? Send it back to the river.
How to cure bad habits? Send me back to you.
When water gets caught in habitual whirlpools,
dig a way out through the bottom
to the ocean. There is a secret medicine
given only to those who hurt so hard
they can’t hope.
The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.
Look as long as you can at the friend you love,
no matter whether that friend is moving away from you
or coming back toward you.
(That is what happened to me. This poem makes me cry so hard I cannot tell you, but I am so glad.)
Hell isn’t anything
worse than standing in
paradise with closed eyes.
One night, my boyfriend dreamt he kissed Scarlett Johansson.
That made him happy for the entire next day. It was, he said,
extremely hot. He doesn’t know it yet, but that dream was all
about me. Let me tell you the reasons. First of all, Scarlett
Johansson and I have the same exact birthday, except hers
is in November and mine is in May. Also, Scarlett Johansson,
just like me, would never dream of dating anyone under thirty.
That is, she only goes out with men at least nine years older
than she is. It even says so on her Wikipedia entry, and
when I told my boyfriend this, he said, well then, maybe
he’d have a chance with her. Thirdly, when I showed my
boyfriend the first love poem I ever wrote for him, he said
it was really good, for someone who had never written
a poem before in their life. And when he asks me, Why
are you so sexy? Can you tell me that? The answer is
that I want to bear his children, but I wouldn’t say that,
because I’m a Rules girl, and besides, isn’t it just obvious?
Scarlett Johansson is the sexiest woman in the world.
According to The Rules, we do not date married men:
Why would we want to do that to ourselves? Well,
let me tell you, when it comes to his wife, I could beat her
in a Scarlett Johansson contest, hands down. Right
before we broke up, I dreamt I was about to make love
to someone who wasn’t my boyfriend. The moment
he penetrated, I was transformed. I was Scarlett, and I knew
that I had been right all along. If only someone had listened.
