a note to someone i might love

dating while aging is wild. long settled inner disputes on my attractiveness and success reemerge. part of my mind is still seventeen - now confused why lovers are old and complex. mirrors. high stakes. today’s piece dwells here.

A Note to Someone I Might Love

I lay alone after our first date and there are things I must say,  even if I never say them. 

You want the things I want. You’ve met the violence of this world with an expansive heart. I resist looking your way. 

You are my age. Your stomach is folds and repulsive, as I fear mine is. I resent you. 

I don’t want how I see you to stop us. But your skin is a mirror. I’m not sixteen, falling in puppy dog love. I carry a young boy’s dreams and their sad weight. I see the unlived life where I am not alone, and my eldest child just turned twenty.  

Your curves are my curves. Our shapes make lovemaking pitiable. Only the beautiful deserve pleasure, and it is too late for fairytales. 

Spells are cast to escape the path that leads to connection and dying. I will make you too good or too flawed for me. Either way, I am safe. 

Vancouver, Feb 2024

Notes - edited by Karen Cooper