good lover

Elise Thompson

infallible logic: 

if I wait by the phone 

call back / text back / have your back / 

following 

staying 

one step behind, as any good lover does

I suppose someday you may love me too

i do not have a type but you fit against my body like water and in my heart, a balloon swelling, barely fitting in me

I have my hate and I put it on pages / I have my heart and I’d like to put it in you

i do not dream but in real life dreams bleed

passing fantasy of lips against my cheek in the pouring rain / passing fantasy of lips lower / passing fantasy of sitting pressed close / passing fantasy of hands in my hair turning me 

inside out

i do not run from happiness I run toward full tilt in daytimes and nighttimes because it is better to run to than to run from

if I am fast enough I will be holy,

worthy of your sacrifices

though I do not care if you do them

i and you have never loved, but i have venerated and

i will earn love through saintly devotion (its reciprocal)

i pray to love: it’s the Catholic in me

oh, do not judge too hard, old friend: 

we all exchange our gods

on Monday i spend time with you in a cafe in Paris, where we have been best friends for years, me the silently loving, you the serial dater, and in a series of miscommunications you confess that really, you have liked me all along, and my face goes red but not really, for it wouldn’t be attractive: i am wearing lipstick for this fantasy. yesterday you were a pirate and i was a sailor. at one point I became Robin Wright in The Princess Bride, which I feel somehow you’d appreciate. tomorrow you will be a fine lady constrained by your role and i will be your dressing-girl, and you will haul me to my feet and kiss me

I lie I do have a type

you are good 

you could love me

you never love me

I am a good lover

tell me you want me at 2 a.m. in my bed 

the backstage of my body

and in the in-betweens and

i will want you in the soaking wet in the pouring rain when we cannot touch when you cannot love me back cannot or you will not– I am

a good lover

and I write my letters to devotion, not to you

yes, I am a good lover

and do I exist? 

i’ll call you back to resolve it.