Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

Every morning the maple leaves. / Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts / from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big / and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out: / You will be alone always and then you will die. / So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog / of non-definitive acts, / something other than the desperation. / Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party. / Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party / and seduced you / and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing. / You want a better story. Who wouldn’t? / A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing. / Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on. / What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon. / Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly / flames everywhere. / I can tell already you think I’m the dragon, / that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon. / I’m not the princess either. / Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down. / I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, / I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow / glass, but that comes later. / And the part where I push you / flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks,/ shut up / I’m getting to it. / For a while I thought I was the dragon. / I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was / the princess, / cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle, / young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with confidence / but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess, / while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire, / and getting stabbed to death. / Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal. / You still get to be the hero. [...] Inside your head the sound of glass, / a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion. / Hello darling, sorry about that. / Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we / lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell / and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. [...] We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too, / smiling and crying in a way that made me even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I / just couldn’t say it out loud. / Actually, you said Love, for you, / is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s / terrifying. No one / will ever want to sleep with you.