A series of tiktoks led me to research adult attachment theory and now I’m questioning whether I ever loved you at all.
I don’t mean to compare you to my first boyfriend,
but I can’t help but wonder, sometimes,
how I trick myself into thinking you measure up.
I tell myself, sometimes, that steady streams
of love like that are childish. Nothing hits
quite right like first loves, I tell myself,
but never out loud, never present this hypothesis
to anyone who might try to prove me wrong.
A love like that is childish, is unattainable, is
impossible, improbable, I could never love
someone like I loved him (because we were
young, because I didn’t know what love was,
(because there will never be anyone like him)).
It’s getting hard to tell when I am lying
to myself. When I say no one knows me like you,
I think what I really mean is no one hurts me
like you. Both are true. You wouldn’t know
exactly how to tear me apart
if you didn’t know where all the seams lay.
When I say no one makes me laugh like you
I think what I really mean is I don’t see
anyone but you. It’s true that I give you
everything I have but it is because
all I know is you, now, all I see
is you, and did that ever sound healthy?
Even with all the lies I tell.
I tell myself that no one could ever
love me like you do while asking
if you really do
in the same breath.
I spent all this time trying to work out
if you really love me, I forgot to wonder
if I even love you back.
My Boyfriend’s Lava Lamp Stares Me Down Each Evening
Alien-like, the way it bobs and
flows and tears itself apart only
to pull itself back together again,
glowing blobs that merge,
sinking into each other in some
sick syncopation, slick symbiotes.
I think sometimes he cares more
about that lava lamp than he does
about me. Watch how he turns
it on each morning with care,
covers it with a teatowel to warm
it, cherish it, each night when
we get into bed he wonders aloud
whether he remembered
to turn off the lava lamp.
You did, dear.
As if you would forget
something as important as that.
