Modified Haibun with a line borrowed from Baudelaire
by Sophie Christenberry
Oh boy I’m still in love with you. I’m a dumb sleek golden dog about it. Sweet on a bone I’ve
never had. I’m stick in the mud about you. A dying cherry tree. Your guilt a crocodile dumb
sleek golden. Consuming you. My love a motor spinning me under. I can’t believe how long
I’ve known you. Known sound of your rings clicking. On my bedside table. When am I going
to be free of you? In your sister’s empty apartment. In your basement bedrooms. In my own
mournful solitude. The sound of your girlfriend’s names clicking. A wheel of fortune
thrumming to a stop. I thought when I fucked a hundred guys. When you took a hammer.
You bursted every bulb. Oh My Brilliant Friend. A soft brown mailing envelope. When you
demanded the book back. Always on loan. Why are you still the love of my life? I hope when I
read this poem in a year it’s different. I have fucked and begged a thousand people. I’ve asked
to fall in love fifteen times. And I have two times. When I read this poem in nine years I will
it different. I wonder also if I will know you in nine years. If we will be alive. I can’t make
myself out. Time is moving faster than ever. I wept like a fountain, like a bursted pipe.
Tonight they started a war.
What if I die and I still love you?
I’d forgive you.
Sophie Christenberry (she/her) is a poet and waitress from Brooklyn, New York. She's a Scorpio who loves seltzer and taking the train to the beach. Her work appears in HAD, Olney Magazine, and Peach. Follow her on Twitter @___sophieclare and Instagram @millennial_tyler_moore.