It was not like everyone had said.
Not like being needed,
or needing; not desperate;
it did not whisper
that I’d come to harm. I didn’t lose
my head. No, I was not
going to leap from a great
height and flap
my wings.
It was in fact
the opposite of flying:
it contained the wish
to be toppled, to be on the floor,
the ground, anywhere I might
lie down.…
On my back, and you on me.
Do you mind?
Not like having a conversation, exactly,
though not unlike telling
and being told—
That I was like a woman admitting
there was a part of herself she didn’t know?
There was a part of myself.
I didn’t know.
An introduction,
then, to the woman I was like,
at least as long as you kissed me.
Now that’s a long time,
at least a couple of women ago.