To Make Monsters Out of Girls

by Amanda Lovelace

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

even lucifer himself wore a pair of wings on his shoulder blades, but remember, dear one—it wasn’t long before he let the straps slip down & everyone found out he was never who he was always pretending to be.

the monster made himself another monster because he couldn’t stand being a monster all by himself.

& yet . . . how am i supposed to believe he’s not just wasting time with me while he waits for a girl who doesn’t have to reach through the dark to keep making sure the other side of the sheet isn’t turning cold?

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.