A Letter to Gwen (o
Rose Haskell
I try to do you justice
Carefully sculpting your sparkling sky-blue ey
after flowing sentence
I scatter the page with words about half-smile
landscape of grief and bitterness like sprinkles stick
Sweet enough to make you sick.
I want to love you
And I think a part of me does
But the other part recoils from the lonely des
The uncontrollable tears
The pervasive, inescapable chagrin as you bu
who loves you;
To reach out is to get your hands bitten off.
I want to love you, but I can’t bear to look at
I can’t bear the sickening stomach-flip of fam
You are the piece of myself that I have done
behind my old house to rot with the smashed cigaret
Time and time again, I leave your limp body
trampled, drooping dandelions
I leave you to stare with glassy eyes at the pa
driveway
And every time, I find you perched in the pas
smiling hopefully as your fingers brush my hair back
I want to love you
Because I want to love me.