Photo credit: C.K.
Let me know when you get home-
if you can.
I’d like to leave by 5 so get here by 4-
if you can.
It’s cold out here. Grab my sweatshirt from the chair-
if you can.
Just hold me again-
if you can.
Maybe can is too much.
Always asking for one or another
and then qualifying…
if you can.
And you don’t even hear it.
Of course they can-
can call and come and grab,
if they want.
Maybe they don’t want. Maybe they can’t.
Maybe they’re tired ,
of calling and coming and grabbing
because you ask for it all the time,
expect it every time,
and never consider, for a time,
if they want.
Maybe that’s why-
why this whole tangle started,
opposite us at opposite ends of it,
the bite and the working ends of the rope,
knotting, twisting,
getting farther apart
with the same length of thread between us.
Because
if you can,
they can.
But You wouldn’t.
You don’t want to
You won’t ever want to.
But that doesn’t matter
because if you can,
they can.
Even if you don’t want,
they want,
and you not wanting, doesn’t make them want less.
Neither has anything to do with can.
The converse, it has only to do with want.
Maybe doing so many cans
makes their want
that much more acute,
makes the want so much brighter and sharper,
and makes it ache so throbbing
and incessant that it veers from
can…
to want…
to need;
that space to
see and feel that
they can
so they will.
And you did.
You made it through
like I made it through
that messy war we made together.
Then you found it,
the real it,
not that make-believe
shit we heard about.
And I love that for you , not you for that,
but there is still something that
is loved
together,
which is irreplaceable
even if means crying
a lot
and smiling
a little.
We can do both.
But I do want.
This.
Don’t need.
Want.
And I’ll be here.
If you want, or don’t want,
Want, if you do.
Need, if you must.
And please stay-
if you can.
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