To Make Monsters Out of Girls

by Amanda Lovelace

if you start to keep score, can you still call it love? - signs.

the only way i can remember what happened is if i sit down & pray to the paper & hope the pen is a believer. - to make up for the fact that i’m not.

i already know i shouldn’t be writing these poems about you anymore. if it’s any consolation, they’re more about me than they are about you (in other words: it’s not you, it’s me). the only reason i’m letting myself write them now is so i can finally write about all the worthwhile things that disappeared when you sent them off to sail the foggy, forbidden sea. despite the best of your efforts, the ship found its way back to me & i’ve realized there is so much more to my existence than the memory of a man who would love to see me drown in search of happiness without him. - the letter i never sent.

the first time i heard the news, i expected tears. i expected a cry so loud that it would land upon stars in other galaxies. in other universes. in other dimensions. at the very least, i expected a vodka-neat scorch to rip through my body. but you know what? that didn’t happen. the world did not stop mid-spin, nor did it lose a pigment of its color. the sun never became eclipsed by the all too self-important moon.