Bluffton University

Generic Love Song in the Key of Existence

by Maggie Odom

the first time i met them
was on some street corner
next to a crosswalk sign counting down from infinity.
there are things that i will never reach,
     that i will never have the poems to understand.

when i die, i want to be burned up
in flames, scattered around this earth,
fall like rain
everywhere that i ran out of time to go while i was
alive.
but the priest
says, if i do that
God won’t be able to find all my broken pieces
when he comes to get me.
i said, isn’t that
     the whole point of God?
that he’s supposed to collect all the shattered glass
of your soul,
super glue it into a vase that catches
the sunlight streaming
in through the cracks in your dirty windows?

i used to think i wanted to fall in love
with someone who would put me back together
but now i don’t think i want to fall
at all,
because once you go down
it’s a long way back
with your skinned up knees and heavy
heavy heart,
a tin can on the bottom of the ocean.
     if i waste my whole life looking for another half
will i never be whole? 

i’ve spent so long
crying for my six year old self
because i’m not who i thought i would be.
i am nothing but God
trying to clutch the ashes of myself
in these tiny
tiny hands.
i thought i would always have the wingspan
and the words to carry this
weight of existence
but instead i am already burning.
     (how could you not fall in love with that?)

oh
my God i am
drowning in
future
but even in the shallow end
there is
not enough infinity left. 

i wanted nothing
more than to tell them i loved them
that night we drove circles on a one way street
but instead all i could say was
we are too small for this world.

how will i ever begin to apologize to myself for all of the things i will never become?