christinastoddard.com

Half-Assed Declaration of Independence


There's always a reason to quit. Your silences

pour over the house like oil while my anger

snakes like a downed power line.

And there's always a reason


to wait: I'm machine-gunned by doubt.

The pleats around your eyes

are beautiful enough to renew

all my promises. I anguish over your


calf muscles, your perfect pie crust,

the out-of-print books you seem to find

as easily as pennies on the street

just in time for my birthday. I've lost my way before,

darling, though never so committedly. Happiness


is more delicate than the angle where the iris

meets the lens, and the things I shouldn't have felt

have carried me farther than I ever imagined.

I'm tired of the windstorms uprooting

all the trees. I know that if I expect you to hear it,


then whatever I say must be plain as a pine box

so here it is: my desires are like teeth

that won't align. Lovers must die or part.

It happens all the time.