i won't


I Won’t
by emily r. canty
I’d like to let you seep into me so that I become a spongey mess
Your fingers, explorers,
My appetite soaked in my desire for you
Even in a slightly less than perfect world I could let your intimacy envelop me,
Cup your hands to hold me
Until I run through your fingers & become a puddle of vulnerable
My desire to live inside of your embrace frightens my desire to be independent
Desires hidden in unshed tears
I cannot understand as you blink in Morse code
So I bat my lashes in time with yours,
dot-dash-dot-dash-dash…
Hoping, hoping
The blinking won’t loosen the tightly cradled droplets
But also hoping, hoping
You notice my quivering lips when I say, “I don’t love you.”

0 thoughts on “i won't

  1. yeah. Funny how our adventures in love bring us to some brink of bliss or destruction. Is love a leap of faith–surely it is or why would it be sought after yet avoided at the same time.
    The images in poem and personification used, though traditional, still grabbed me and held me in its teeter-tottering embrace. Sometimes i think when we say ‘i don’t love you’, what we mean is ‘i can’t love you’. Thoughts?
    ‘Give me your heart, make it real, or else forget about it!’ –words that seem plastic until you experience it. hmm.

  2. Mofo – interesting thoughts on the “don’t” and “can’t”. It made me look at this poem a little closer – the desire, the fear in dependenc, the break down in communication, the mixed message at the end, wavering between words and emotional/physiological gesture. There’s a complexity here of unspoken thoughts, needs, and emotions, that really speaks volumes on the way people go about their hit-or-miss relationship foibles. Its a much better poem than I originally thought. Reading the comments of other readers oftentimes has that effect – it makes me open my eyes a little wider and see what I was missing.

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