how love changes you
Nokyoung Xayasane

when I was 26
I said, I would like
to have a lover in every country

but that would involve
first
leaving the country
first
saving the money

I’m sure it’s not a very nice thing
to use people
for my own amusement
but I’m sure they use me too

I get asked out for dinner and coffee
all the time
I never put much thought into it
but they usually want more
from me than I can give them
they’ve been sold
on the idea of love
everlasting love
I pity them sometimes
like a mother
with her small child
they don’t know any better
but they will

I ask myself,
is it my responsibility
to teach them
I really don’t know sometimes
actually, I’d rather not

how come when someone
does something nice
that’s never all it is
I guess we are humans after all

this was a time
when I had concluded
the worst things about love

how it changes you
into someone fit
for someone else
but I’ve never been one
to fit into a square peg
I’m a round hole
after all

how come being in love
feels like falling asleep in the snow
during a blizzard
they tell you never
to do this
because you’ll wake up dead

I always end up falling
asleep in the snow
no matter how hard
I try
to stay awake
the warmth
and the giving in
the ending of who
I was
and who I had
always wanted to be

that’s love
to me

and then it’s over
it ends
as it always does
and I try to relocate
the substance of myself
I find it dormant
in the snow
hidden
protected

I try to warm
it in my hands
I try to remember
I’m a round hole
after all
and you had always
been a square peg

but back to the dinner and coffee
can a guy ask a girl
for dinner and coffee
without that extra layer
of something else

in my experience,
this has never been the case
now this makes me
wonder about all your
coffee dates
and all my own
perhaps we were planning
our great escape
but we hadn’t admitted it
to ourselves, to each other
it makes me sad sometimes
to think about love
how transient it is
how fallible
how it changes
as we change

but anyways
the thing is
you’re the guy a girl
dates to get her parents upset
I’m the girl you marry
if I believed in marriage
I think that pretty much
says it all

I hope you find
what you’re looking for
I’m a round hole
after all