To Veronica

[JBrower]

I backslide whenever
flowers smell like your shampoo
and wonder if my appreciation
of aesthetics might prove
a downfall, a loss
of touch with reality.

Nothing of you is true,
you have no core—
just words you've
been told before and
ideas that sprang up
elsewhere, long ago—
but in the depths of
solitude, superficiality
doesn't seem so bad
when accompanied by
the gift of your warm
skin against mine and the
soft press of your lips
on my neck. Palm-to-thigh,
warmth-to-warmth and
suddenly I'm back
where I never belonged
in the first place.

I rely on less-natural art
as a stark reminder:

I could share my favorite films
with you, night after night:
trippy psych dramas,
literate rom-coms,
philosophical mind-f*cks,
but each evening as the
credits roll, you'd have
nothing to say but
"that was nice"
or "that one was
a little dull,"
and you'd be like an
auger against my skull.

Do you not own your own words?
Can you not own your own thoughts?

I guess we're two different
types; you like facts, while
I prefer "ideas" and "mights,"
because absolutes are never
true and one day you will
realize there can be

no faith

in the books you read
or the pontifications
of professors, pastors,
or parents, and what might
actually matter are
motives and emotions.

The dissolution of my own
ignorance made absolutes
impossible, ideas interesting,
and happiness elusive,
but we could have found
contentment in discourse
about what might cause
such a dissident sentiment.

I'd rather live in shades
of grey than the impossible
black and white
of your day-to-day.
No optimism—
especially yours—
is ever revolutionary, and
I could never again love
a woman who cannot
discuss, cannot agree or
disagree, except to nod "of course."

I could love a thousand women
if any took time to converse.
I want a girl who
precedes intimacy with a
head-butt, a locking of horns,
and refuses a tour of her
gentle slopes to any man
without a mind. Dream Girl
would expect something
more:

a story, a song, a philosophical war.