maybe one day I will stop smoking,
put down the Shiraz,
stop raising every man who ever cried beautiful to my lips-
maybe then, I will reach into this cedar chest and rattle you loose,
stop reaching for you like a favorite jacket,
and you can tell me about the others-
how I was not first choice but the last standing,
and isn’t that what really matters,
because don’t we love survivors the most-
maybe one day I will learn to swim
break the levies in your skull, spring free of this
prison built with concrete hands,
shed the heavy lifevest, gripping and
filling my lungs with flood-water thrusts
and your name-
maybe one day I will leave this all behind
stop checking for scorpions in my shoes,
and bleach out this natural stain.
maybe one day, when Love is no longer something I have to survive,
I will tell you-
you were never something I wanted to get over with:
I grew my hair so there was more of me to fill your hands:
I spun yarn balls with poems so I could sleep under your tongue:
I glued the butterfly ribcage you cracked open
and rocked my spilled organs back to sleep.
Lora Robinson is a poet and technical writer based in Baltimore, MD. Her poetry has been previously published in the SCARAB and her first poetry collection will be released in spring/summer 2021 by akinoga press.
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