Photo by Elena Mozhvilo
You Just Be You
Gregory O’Neill
in this poem, and no one else ever has to know.
It’ll be our secret, and you can blush if anyone
asks, since those desires we share are not for
each other but aligned in parallel, which is why
we look terrific sitting here with our coffee and
our ransom notes, kidnapping ourselves and
secreting it away until events become wonder,
an ethereal basket woven with diamond grasses
and reeds of love, able to carry both hope and
dream to the next camp or generation, the way
broken ribs can only be wrapped in a hidden
healing hug. You can be the you in this poem
because you’re so good at letting everyone else
be the you in your poem, at letting so many
people be the you in your life, so take a turn here,
where you don’t have to be the speaker for as
long as you need to catch your breath, and I’ll
brew more coffee, put a roast in the oven, maybe
you’ll bake cookies. I still believe love cuts out
the bottom forty percent of suffering, though in
some cases with diminishing returns, and that
it goes both ways, that the lover and loved both
suffer less if they’re doing it right, and who says
romantic love gets to cut to the front of the line
anyway. At the end of this poem, we’ll go back
to our own cozy homes, put our kids to bed, and
when you lie down exhausted at the end of the day,
you can be the you in this poem, and relax, we’ll
call it a day of perfunctory nostalgia, so that whatever
is lost up ahead, that longing, will be sweetly enough.
Gregory O’Neill
in this poem, and no one else ever has to know.
It’ll be our secret, and you can blush if anyone
asks, since those desires we share are not for
each other but aligned in parallel, which is why
we look terrific sitting here with our coffee and
our ransom notes, kidnapping ourselves and
secreting it away until events become wonder,
an ethereal basket woven with diamond grasses
and reeds of love, able to carry both hope and
dream to the next camp or generation, the way
broken ribs can only be wrapped in a hidden
healing hug. You can be the you in this poem
because you’re so good at letting everyone else
be the you in your poem, at letting so many
people be the you in your life, so take a turn here,
where you don’t have to be the speaker for as
long as you need to catch your breath, and I’ll
brew more coffee, put a roast in the oven, maybe
you’ll bake cookies. I still believe love cuts out
the bottom forty percent of suffering, though in
some cases with diminishing returns, and that
it goes both ways, that the lover and loved both
suffer less if they’re doing it right, and who says
romantic love gets to cut to the front of the line
anyway. At the end of this poem, we’ll go back
to our own cozy homes, put our kids to bed, and
when you lie down exhausted at the end of the day,
you can be the you in this poem, and relax, we’ll
call it a day of perfunctory nostalgia, so that whatever
is lost up ahead, that longing, will be sweetly enough.