As If Our Memories Were Not Enough by Krysten Hill

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us poets, we stupid enough to
immortalize our lost loves in ink,
get them stuck
in that paper thin reality
we so used to living in.

Haunting cafes in their honor,
we recite pieces of them
to complete strangers,
like they give a damn,
just to prove we know how to love
like our absent mothers or fathers
never took the time to do.

We dismember those lost,
claim the parts of their bodies
we tried to keep,
like full lips, the tattoo
above a hip, the perfect fit
in the crook of an arm.
We got our ways of holding on
when they let go.

But all these words don’t change
the fact we naïve enough
to give them credit for swallowing
the world we hated
and delivering it new
when it’s the same damn world.
They just distracted us
while we were all
puppy-dog eyed,
tongue-tied —
trippin,
like we don’t have enough poverty
or deserted revolutions to attend to.