In the years I learned to love

In the years I learned

to love, my shirt was

low my skirt short

my shoes

tall.

There was no more room

left here, in those years.

Nobody seemed to get this.

We all looked for jobs,

there weren’t any

roles to fill.

In the years I learned

to love, I ditched my sweetheart

for a hundred thousand

different men.

Those were the days of drinking,

to unremembered things

that happened to us

when we were

smaller than

a barstool.

In the years I learned

to love, I felt nothing

but a fibrotic clock

inside my chest.

It was an age of righteous causes

and everyone had them:

water, food, and air. Even

the laundromats and bill-

boards would pontificate.

All of us, moonlighting

as diehards, rectifying

our own history,

catching the

swindlers.

Back when the hubbub

was a pacifier that we

sucked at gulping

and greedy until

we learned.

In the years I learned

to love, I hated

easiest of all.

original artwork by kaitlin deasy