One in Ten
Maybe if I were prettier and thinner.
Maybe if boys paid more attention to me.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I were smarter.
Maybe if my grades were better.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I had more friends.
Maybe if I didn't have to spend my birthday alone.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I made more money.
Maybe if my boss appreciated me.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I wasn't a disappointment to my father.
Maybe if someone had believed in me.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I had been a more loving and devoted wife.
Maybe he wouldn't have found someone else.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I had been a better parent.
Maybe if my kids called more often.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I lost some weight.
Maybe people wouldn't think I was lazy and disgusting.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I had known I wasn't cut out to be a mom.
Maybe if this baby were somebody else's.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if the bars opened earlier.
Maybe if there was a drink that could fix this.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I had more energy.
Maybe if I found something I was good at that I loved to do.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I were enough.
Maybe if I deserved a place in this world.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I could just get away.
Maybe if I could go somewhere new.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
Maybe if I could just disappear.
Maybe if I could stop existing for a while.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel this way.
I just miss you.
You said you hoped our paths would cross again one day,
Knowing that the Universe is always growing,
Stealing matter and possibility from our lives.
The world seems so capacious now,
Not in a comfortable way,
As I reflect on how the absence of a Thing
Could feel so much like a big, big Thing.
I find some respite in knowing
That someday I will breathe into these spaces
And fill them once again with quivering pranayama
(I told you, mine is blue).
But rest assured that if I died tonight,
You would be the first and last breath to leave my body.
Eta Carinae
How many times in a day do I accept these microtragedies of the fate? How many times have I surrendered control of my life, just because I'm not entirely sure it belongs to me, or that I deserve it? I hang my head and tell myself "It's for the best," or "It just wasn't meant to be," as if relinquishing supreme dictatorship to the Universe.
Well, this is incongruous with what I know of the Universe. She is cold and indifferent to the petty plight of man. This is because She has supplanted all her passion into us. She has given us no weapons, no armies, not even a strategy. She has given us only a tiny, indestructible ball of iron will, forged in eternal fire, so that we can charge from the front lines, teeth gnashing, crying not "I can," but "I will it, and so it is."
Italia.
I had a nightdream that I traveled to Italy for a gathering of all the Lallis who had ever lived. Hundreds of dark-haired, olive-skinned, beautiful Lallis. We were all standing, facing the same direction, apparently waiting for something that never came. I remember one woman's face in particular. She looked anxious. I think she was wearing a red sweater. She must have been my great-grandmother. Rose Elizabeth Esther Pecorelli Lalli.
I have a daydream that I am summering on the Amalfi coast (because in this daydream I am the kind of person that uses "summer" as a verb). I am always barefoot and barefaced. Always climbing mossy rocks to hidden coves, and always while wearing a sundress, unless of course I'm stripping it off over my head to dive naked into the aquamarine sea. Always lounging in a patch of Mediterranean sunlight beneath the open window of a stone cottage, wearing pastel lingerie. There's a cat perched on the windowsill. And there are always flowers. Lots of flowers. And of course, my Italian lover, who comes and goes as he pleases. Or rather, as I please. Some nights we make love to the sound of some kind of summer festival going on outside. Some nights we join the festival.
