Loving Upside Down

Mulan via flickr.com

I wish I had been the first woman to land in your heart

Like an explorer on Mars, I would have been gentle and kind

Picking up after myself, doing no harm

Marveling to be the first to walk your surface

For awhile, I would not have even claimed it as my own

For the same reason my cat does not have a collar

She lives with me, but I do not own her, really.

There have been too many flags planted in your heart

Too many attempts to colonize you

To take more than give

I was trying to bring you joy

And you thought I was scheming

Although it is too late for me to be a gold digger and besides

I have my own gold.

That was then, this is me, I say

I am over her, you throw back and in my head, I insert  ‘not’

And admire my natural nails and calm absence

I am there and not

Daydreaming beats taking heat for a fire I didn’t start

And we have reached the point where your explanations need explanations

So I don’t point out that you called me her name twice

Or that I’m not even mad about it

You’ve been choosing the same woman for years

With the original still tangled in your hair

And expecting a different ending

Unluckily for us, the mess comes back and

Unluckily for you, one woman turned into two bad decades.

You suddenly grew mellow again, but underneath the surface, I felt frantic paddling

I looked at where my watch would be if I wore one

And smiled back at you with tentative wonder

Hoping you wouldn’t be suspicious of that too.

I wish there was a magic eraser for the heart

A forgetting machine

A time limit for holding onto wrongdoings

So I could get a fresh hand

That you’d hit reset. Do Over. Just walk up to the edge and jump

Back to the innocence I miss so much.