I can't help but feel sad when I think of the men in my life, in my past. I want to go back to age sixteen, when the world was new and limitless. Five years later, love has turned stale and soured with my unceasing realism, and I am jaded and tired and cold. No one has ever had the kind of power over me that my lovers have-- and yet I wonder who is really in control; I think in poems and pillowtalk, but I know exactly how to catch your eye or touch your hand, brush your cheek and give you that look (you know the one: that deferent upward gaze, eyes widened and softened in wonder at your majesty, suggesting an emerging smile). You imagine that I have never looked at another man that way-- I know it; I can see it in your eyes. Everytime, I want it to be true.

I think the falsehood of it all bothers me the most. Love loses its luster with time, with every handling, and I am the deadliest combination of traits-- an optimistic cynic. I have such low expectations but such high hopes. I sometimes wonder if I am really so cold. What counts for more?-- the way I make you think I feel, or the lingering self-doubt that I am fighting every moment I stop to reflect.

I would like to think of it this way: I have been trying to write again. The words don't flow the way they used to, but the struggle makes me consider every one, hold it in the palm of my hand and examine it, and, in the end, the poem is better than even the most poignant lines I dashed off as a teenager. Any love I accept will have to grow this way-- gnawing, fighting, revision upon revision until I finally get it right. I will struggle and I will test you, but the end result will be the most beautiful thing I could ever create.