Six Stories About Five Boyfriends

1.
He slid declarations of love to me
on tiny slips of white paper,
still warm from his touch.

2.
He'd come from the workshop,
bringing me things he�d made there:
scraps of metal, burned and twisted
into something I might want from him.

3.
He was achingly slow and gentle,
taking out his frustration on other girls.
We reunited a year later,
when I wasn't a virgin anymore.
He knew this,
and thought it gave him license
to be cruel.

4.
He knew things I could never
hope to know. Like how to walk
between the raindrops.

5.
He drew things for me,
but would never let me see them.
I believed him, imagining a room
filled with beautiful pieces of paper
all for me.

6.
Separation was like surgery:
an amputation that leaves the patient
groping in the night
for the missing part of herself.