she was my favorite


the sort of girl
who didn't hold my hair back
when i vomited up six types of alcohol
all at once
but pushed the glass
back into my hand

"to get the taste out of your mouth,"
she said,
one finger trailing the bathroom floor tiles


the sort of girl
who lived dreams as nightmares
who made everything like
reminiscing,
hazy and distant
and full of fog with heavy-lidded eyes


she had
thin-boned hands
the kind you'd expect
from fairies
(not the ethereal, wingéd ones,
rather the ones who give head
in dimly-lit store rooms--
an entirely different spelling
in my book)

and she
had a touch
that demanded shudders


she was my favorite


the girl
that every bo(d)y wanted
who would climb into bed
with me
because she was my
antieverything
because she couldn't turn down a chance
to say no


i let her sell my apartment
even though we didn't live together
because she spoke so surely
of the uncertainty of our future


she dreamed me up
a thousand happy endings,
kept them on scraps of paper
shoved into her pockets--
she never let me see them


she was my favorite


the type of girl
who asked me if i believed
that soulmates existed
and dismissed my response
with a one-shouldered shrug,
saying she wasn't really sure
about anything, anyway
and what did it all matter?


she made me drive her through the city
on rainy days.
said it calmed her nerves
to see the dirt washed away,
to pretend the world was melting
into a Dali-esque oblivion


i coveted her smeared lips
perpetually perfecting a pout
that hung seductively
more than sadly


she loved to kiss me fierce
and slip me poetry with her tongue
then pretend tomorrow's weather forcast
was thoroughly fascinating


she was my favorite


the first to look me
dead in the eye
on a completely ordinary thursday
and tell me my world
was more plastic and make-believe
than Barbie's,
but we could set it all on fire
if i wanted


the first i told
that when i was eight
i once pretended to have
an imaginary friend
to see if my parents would notice

"they didn't, of course, and that's why
you're the lovely piece of psychoanalyst garbage
you are today."
she cheshires me and waggles
her tongue
to let me know my history
doesn't mean a damn to her


she was my favorite


the sort of girl
who was everything i wasn't
couldn't wouldn't hadn't been
because i dreamed her up
that way.