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If I Am Not In Love
written by: Erin Search-Wells
Category: Love
If I am a woman
Who has never been in love,
But writes poems about love,
Then shouldn't I also begin to write poems about nature
and walks through the woods, since I live in the city?
Shouldn't I then begin to write feverishly about
the robin's red breast in spring, or the song of the chickadee?
Or should I continue to imagine that I am in love
and write poems to faceless, nameless men,
or poems that are combinations of men I do not know
or men I do know
who do not know I am writing this poem about them.
Oughtn't I just sit quietly in this French Brasserie
Instead of writing with my right hand while sipping wine with my left,
so that the bartender, who is a mystery to me, may notice?
And oughtn't I order red wine since that is customary?
If it is true that I have never been in love
then why do I feel this, and oughtn't I see a doctor about it?
And why don't I just refrain from wandering out in the day
And why don't I just sit and think about papers
or read a clever little novel.
Why don't I just accept that going to French restaurants
is not romantic anymore,
and why don't I just rip my teeth out?
And why don't I describe the pain of ripping my teeth out?
Or write a poem about the shitty snow?
If I am not a woman who is in love,
then why don't I just write a poem about a woman who is alone?
Why don't I just eat my soup?
Why do I behave as if I am in love and disappear
from the office for so long in the middle of the day?
And which one am I in love with?
If I think I am in love but do not know with whom,
then wouldn't that fall under the classification of "not in love"?
And if I am so in love with nobody,
then why don't I spread my boundless love all around the world
and soon find it's misplacement placed? If there is this great ability for love,
then what sanction has been placed on it
and why
and who placed it there?
And can his love lie dormant while mine burns me until I am wasted flint?
Can I paint his portrait while he does not pose for it?
And what am I willing to break
And who placed those glass figures in a house with a bull anyway?
And if he has never known crazy love, then how can I explain what is boiling?
Except that we have both dipped our toes in it.
And our toes remain there throughout the day,
even here as the coffee stirs and even here as the shopping
mall leaks "At Last" from its speakers.
Even in this most unromantic winter slush,
our right big toes are hot from the lava
we dipped them in two weeks ago.
Your eyelids are closed.
And no, I am still not a woman in love.
If you are reading this and you are thinking,
"This is a woman who is in love,"
then perhaps you would kindly tell me who it is that I am in love with.
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