_Your beauty is a kick in the nuts
in an otherwise fair fight.

I can still feel the blows you take at me,
but I am now down on my knees,
wondering if children are no longer an option,
wondering if the next girl will laugh and call me ‘The Dali’ to all her friends,
wondering if my chances of winning a Tour de France have just gone up,
depending on your stance on performance enhancing drugs.

I keep trying to get the heck out of Dodge,
but damn if the backs of those Chevys
don’t remind me of the first night we made love just as much.
Hearts beat louder than crickets,
The radio DJ talking us through the steps
because when you’re looking for advice on losing your virginity,
people tend to forget a good CD.

When I said I was leaving,
what I actually meant was
“something’s gotta change and it ain’t gonna be me.”

I miss the days when all you had to do to live happily ever after was slay a dragon. 
Now I have to figure you out. 
Now my weapon of choice has little to do with my success rate.
Now women don’t need a white knight,
and there’s no excuse for coming home late,
black from all the soot
that comes from the kind of fire breathing only humans can do.
Now I’m expected to listen,
and if I can barely hear what my own heart wants,
I was bound to fuck this up from the start.
I’m sorry I fucked this up.

I’m looking up plane tickets to somewhere else
because I hear it’s nice somewhere else this time of year,
because somewhere else ain’t here.
I’m tempted to cruise the bread aisle at Whole Foods while you sleep;
there’s something about 9-grain
that makes me want to fall in love again.
From now on I’m shopping at Trader Joe’s;
if I’m going to get my heart broke,
I’d like to have paid a little less
from the get-go.

Ouch.
Is that a tooth?
Or a little piece of something
I might have needed to feel good again?

Look, I get it.
You think you’d feel less for me
if I were a chalk painting on the sidewalk,
who could wash away next time you cried a rainstorm.

This isn’t about moving on.
On doesn’t move,
he just looks like he does
because we can’t feel our feet
desperate to escape
until our perspective has changed.

Is that you still hitting me,
or have I switched to fighting myself?
Because you look sort of like an angel
lying there shivering in snowy covers pulled tight,
cheeks black with dried up rivers,
“Maybe she’s born with it” sediment--
the only thing left to mark the passage of time.

It’s hard to see it now, but
I know it was there once.
I should have made little notches on my watches,
so I could look at my wrist and say,
“Hey, it’s time to be happy again,
now that it’s e-love-in o’clock.”
But I was never much good with routines,
so now I’m just waiting for a little spontaneity,
a pleasant moment to strike,
but pleasant moments have taken to pacifism lately.
Not your breathing though.
Your chest heaves like a battlefield
and I wonder where you’re dreaming.
I hope it’s somewhere nice,
somewhere we always wanted to go,

but never found the time.
Where’d we put it anyways?

The sun’s almost up,
and I need an Endswell.

I regret announcing our meeting to the school,
because no one’s winning this one,
and the spectators just make it harder to think clearly.

Would it have been beautifully sad
had Frazier and Ali kissed each other goodbye
after the unanimous decision?
the kiss hurting more
with the knowledge
they could have tried harder
to love instead
just fifteen rounds earlier.
And Frazier--
left hook powerless to regret,
his back to lifeless eyes of a defeated colleague,
whose heart’s beat lessened
shattering in the middle of the ring--
walked off, sweating tears,
mumbling something
that sounded like
three am
in an ICU ward,
“I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry
it had to be like this.”