I'm Glad I Didn't Die Before I Met You.

Everybody! I made it back to Portland in one piece. This is a) because of my exceptional driving skills and b) because a very large red-headed fella with about three teeth helped me put oil and transmission fluid in the Biscuit. I promise I’ll tell you about my trip. I’ve got plenty to say about it, but I need to do some processing before I word-vomit all over the internet. So tonight I’m going to answer a “reader request”. By calling it a “reader request” I’m implying I have readers (all of you fine people whom I adore) and admitting to the fact that you guys have a say in what you hear from me. Comments/questions/concerns? Feel free to e-mail.

[Note: Mom, you want to just skip this one…]

Tonight’s theme: a chronological poetic analysis of my first love affair. Before we get started, keep several things in the forefront of your mind. Let the record show I was seventeen, angsty and living in Smalltown Montana when I wrote these poems. Post high school I was working in a café in Smalltown (one of two cafés in a 30 mile radius), waiting for my first semester at University of Montana to hurry it’s ass up and start already. The first woman I ever loved was my co-worker. Let’s call her Lily so I can stop typing out “the first woman I ever loved”. It’s obnoxious. Also, though I had a boyfriend in high school [note: singular, and it lasted about 6 days my junior year], this was the first time I felt an insane connection to another living human being. Also, I hate to break it to you guys but things didn’t work out with me and my first love. She’s now happily married to one of the best men I’ve ever met in my entire life, and I’m obvs out here Growing Up in Portland. I still love her very much, and she’s one of my very dearest friends. Scene set? Good.

I’m pretty sure these first two poems refer to the same night. Lily and I had been working together for about a month. I’m pretty sure we had kissed already. Lil invited me to spend the 4^th of July with her and her then boyfriend. Oh, boyfriend? Yes. Damn.

7.04.06

      #1

100 lbs of Devil-may-care

Lose myself in the loose corners

of her kiss

A bottle of blackberry wine

washing away my tragedy.

Moonlight loves the line

of her jaw, hides beneath

            those cheekbones.

     #2

Maybe it’s the booze. Maybe it’s the holiday. Maybe it’s summer and seventeen and smoking cheap cigarettes on the neighbor’s porch. I’ll be reaching for the goddamn stars, even if I never catch them. Wandering lips/hands/hearts. Sloshing wet gravel beneath bare feet, the rain pouring down like fireworks, showering sparks, showering silver.

My backseat and your clean sheets. Nerves jangling louder than the change in the ashtray, louder than the phone a hundred years away. And I want to believe in love, and I want you to believe in me, because I sure as hell believe in the way your skin feels between my teeth.

Blinking at another neon 3 a.m., your hands on me, soaked but smiling. Cheap booze, cheap perfume, cheap lies, and it’s fucking beautiful the way you smile in the moonlight.

Following “our-summer-of-love”, little b scooted off to college completely infatuated. Unfortunately, this whole boyfriend thing was still going on and Lily (being a responsible adult), admirably ignored the majority of my advances. The day that inspired the next poem she drove into Missoula to visit me for the first time. We spent the afternoon downtown, browsing the Import Market and old bookstores, being all coy with each other.

[Note: ULOL let me drink some of her awesome hand-distilled vodka as a nightcap. I think it hit me approximately 1.5 pages ago.]

10.04.06

To hold beauty close to my body, feel

the music slide down

the curve of my ribcage, release

my voice let it dance.

Because all I want is all I want is

all I want is you

and me and this:

            a nothing that feels like something

            beautiful.

Like sneaking kisses between the rows

of musty books, making my breath

            startstopstart again

the way we startstopstart.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

Then there’s a big long gap in my poetic lovelife. I’m pretty sure my first semester of finals and maybe my one-and-only cocaine experience occurred somewhere in here. For her birthday, I invited Lil over to my parents’ house for a tea party with my little sister. Cute? I'm not sure. Kind of awkward looking back. Later in the afternoon, during naptime, the next poem happened.

1.21.07

Lazy winter sunlight

pools under the dirty window

while your breath

paints stories across my skin

and the day stretches out

beside our bodies intertwined

minutes melting into hours:

            squandering precious seconds

            hoping the smell of your hair

            lingers on my pillow.

And I love the way your thoughts

parade across your face,

love the dark of your hair against

the white of my sheets,

the dissonance

of our uneven breathing.

And last but not least. The letting go poem. I'm not convinced this is actually when I said goodbye to Lily, since I met my first girlfriend whilst crying about my broken little heart... but this was a good step towards Being Ok again. 

2.06.07

I’ll

            let you teach me how to sing

            again.

            Because I can’t stop staring   

                        at your rainstorm.

            The way your body moves,

            so fluid,

            with the rhythm of

            breaths:

            desperate needing me, kneading you

            My dirty little secret,

                        beautiful alien, enchanting.

            I’m missing you already

            when you’re kissing me goodbye.

            Loving me loving you

                        and the idea of love.

I hope this post doesn’t sound too flippant. Seriously, you guys. These experiences played a vital role in shaping who I am today. The idea of “first love” sounds corny and over-played, but everybody has a first. If you’re lucky like me, they stick around despite all the drama and bullshit and you get to benefit from a long, incredibly fulfilling friendship. She changed my life, and I thank  the powers that be, she could see we were meant to be long-term friends not short-term lovers. 

The funny thing about re-reading all of these old poems is that I can still feel the emotions so resoundingly. They’re little vignettes into my past, and I love them for their honesty. Lil, I hope this is what you were looking for.

Stay posted, I’ll be talking about my love affair with Missoula soon.

I love you all. All the days.

-b