​i wanted to love you (13/25)

​i wanted to love you
yesterday
but you were too far down the block
i was too shy to call out to you and disturb the peace
or try to with this voice i was given
i didn’t know your name
but i was going to. we were going to cross paths and dance around each other and apologize too many times and then start laughing
a truck was going to cough pointedly up the road and remind us that we were in public
i was going to forget what i was saying and you were going to glance down at your watch and have to get going and i was going to watch you walk away
the sun was going to set on time and i was going to linger in the parking lot among the ghosts of the saturday farmer’s market and wonder if you lived here

i was going to be surprised when you played the fiddle at the bar that lost its liquor license and forget your name when i talked to you again and find that you had forgotten my face
you were going to be flushed with drinking in the crowd and i was going to wish i were old enough to say something cool or young enough to hold your attention but then you were going to notice my skirt and i was going to remind you that we met on the street and we would remember together
i was going to say that i write poetry and you were going to think that was cool, or at least i was going to think you said because it was so loud in there
i was going to compliment your music, but really mean that i thought you were beautiful and maybe you were what appalachia was all about after all

we were going to meet one last time at the vigil, this time through tears in your case and weariness in mine
our hands were going to smile into each other as the prayer began and i would forget your name when you confessed how lucky you felt to be alive even as our people were being lowered back into the earth in a city where most of us had never been
the bridge was going to become our bar and we would still be gay but maybe something greater too
the summer was going to end, i was going to go to a place my tongue is used to calling home and forget your face but remember your fiddle
and hope you would know me if i ever made it back to the mountains

but you didn’t live in whitesburg and i didn’t call your name and you went to a bar in a city i’ve never been to as i helped set the table here and you drank a cup of what i still can’t touch and dance a dance we might have danced if things were different
and i start writing this poem
as you go to a place our tongues forget to call home

Inspired by Alexis Pauline Gumbs & the city of Whitesburg

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