And even if her whole body looks like a watercolor painting, that doesn’t mean
you can dip your hands into the palettes of her hips and brush between her legs.
And even if her smile seems as inviting as a chandelier, don’t try
hanging yourself from the ceiling of her thighs just to get a glimpse inside.
And even if her dress is already halfway off, do the math.
The two letters that make up “No” will never equal the three letters of a “Yes.”
And even if you’re hungry like a wolf, lust isn’t love,
So keep your paws and teeth to yourself.
And even if there’s drinking involved, remember she isn’t drunk on you
so don’t try to put her further under the influence, especially
when the influence is you.
And even if you want to stick your tongue down her throat like a metal pole in winter,
that doesn’t mean you can’t try getting yourself unpeeled first.
Thaw your greediness before letting yourself get frozen in the wrong path.
And even if she doesn’t look like your narrow-minded image of a woman,
then maybe the magnifying glass you’re using is cracked and dirty
and raping her certainly won’t turn her into the person you want her to be.
And even if she’s passed out and no one else is around,
try “passing” on the opportunity to ruin her life instead.
And even if you think saying a prayer before breaking down
the church of her body is going to save you, it won’t.
Because you don’t deserve her forgiveness.
And even if you’re going to say later that she was asking for it,
she wasn’t.
You were just too self-absorbed to pay attention to her answer.
Today I memorize your heartbeat line by line.
You once got a tattoo of the spikes of breath that show up
on a breathing machine in the hospital, on your forearm
above the tiny red birthmark that looked like the blood
of a grapefruit shot with a handgun. I once read
about an elderly man who used to call up complete strangers
every day before his death, and talked about things
like their favorite type of pizza, their never-ending loneliness,
or the rise and fall of the stock market. He did this
for four years straight, and informed the local newspaper
that the best calls he ever made
were the ones in which no one spoke.
Just breath on the other end.
And tonight I remember how I used to measure
all the space I spent without you in the distance
between our fingertips, until one day you left me
for some other woman, and I went to bed
remembering that you were 450 finger-lengths away.
I didn’t know yet that you would come back to me
again, and leave me three more times
before the year was over, and all I’d be left with
was the voicemails I made
of you breathing down my phone line.