I was watching this movie where a young woman

(brunette, curly-haired, striped shirt) twirled around on a lawn

until she got dizzy and then she collapsed. Gulps of laughter

jumped out of her mouth like little frogs from a wading pool.

I watched it and I thought, how stupid being in love makes people act.

A grown adult acting like this! Spinning around like a child

and like a child falling down. I watched this scene with my eyes

all squinted up and part of my stomach started to rock against another part.

 

Because I was in love, and then I was not. Just like that,

just like, snap, I was no longer in the relationship. He left me.

I could say it like that. I could say, he didn’t ever love me.

I could say, today he’s at a friend’s wedding where I

was supposed to be, too, and I bet he’s drinking fire drinks

and laughing the laughter of a man who takes too much pride

in being in love with no one. I could say, he said we started

saying “I love you” too soon. Even though he was half the ones

who were saying it. I could also say, fuck him.

 

Then there’s the movie. I am watching it to forget

that there is anything in the world besides this movie.

It’s a thriller. The kind where a guy is filmed crookedly

and walls dissolve and even you, the watcher, have no idea

what’s real anymore. Maybe the woman isn’t really spinning.

Maybe she is. Maybe she’s spinning and she hurts herself

when she falls. Maybe the woman spinning is you, and you are still

in love, and the laughter you hear is from the man you love,

who isn’t, after all, laughing the laugh of a man who desires

all women as much as he desires one, but rather is laughing

because you’ve spun so much that you’ve stopped seeing

the world straight and when you fell he was happy

that you landed inside his wide-open arms.