LITR 3731 Creative Writing 2008

Bethany Roachell

AMBIVALENCE

I'm waiting for you to come back to me.
My fingernails are digging into your skin
and I'm just waiting for you to react,
give in, turn around and face me again.
If you'd just pick me back up off the ground,
maybe I could forgive you then.
Remind each other what it's like to love.
Arms wrapped around your neck when
my feet are swinging in the air.
We'll ignore everything else but the spin,
forget what we should remember.
But pasts will haunt us, what had been,
getting in the way of what we cherish.
But it was our temptation, our sin
that brought us together in the first place.
So we stop... only to begin.

BEAUTIFUL ONCE

What is so beautiful about this body

people love to look at,

hate to touch?

Flat planes, bones jut out,

I am sharp, angular and uncomfortable.

This body you call beauty has no soft curves

to fill your hands—

nothing to hold on to.

Maybe that's why I'm easy to discard,

to forget; to throw away and leave behind.

It's a mess, the jagged parts of me—you broke

the pieces you said you wanted

but left without worry (care? love?).

There is not much here, I guess—

so easy to overlook.

Still—

You said beautiful once.

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