1. Years ago, Isaac Newton claimed that energy is neither
created nor destroyed, but from what little knowledge of science
I have after failing both chemistry and biology in the same year,
I’m more inclined to believe
that Newton was wrong in this case. I was there, and I know he
took some of you with him when he finally stopped
robbing the graveyard of your body and re-buttoned his jeans.
A few cells at least, scraped from inside you like specimens
in a petri dish, like ripped out sutures, like dead tissue
scrubbed from raw pink gums after a root canal.
2. If I could, I would hang lanterns in the walls
of my apologies so everyone I wronged, like you, would light up
like glowsticks in the darkness and guide me home.
I would go back, rewind the tape,
hold your hand, unravel the long strands of breath
you tangled up between his fingers as he clutched his palm
over your face and pressed down hard like a pile driver into concrete.
I would straighten them out like yarn, knead them like dough,
feed them back into your open mouth one by one like pasta,
so he would stop telling all his buddies that he “took your breath away.”
3. My grandfather worked in a junkyard for half his life,
readying smashed cars with bent-up frames and sinking bumpers
for incineration. And you know, I may be one hell of a bad driver,
had my share of speeding tickets, but some of that junkyard DNA
must have rubbed off on me too, and at least I know
that some cars, no matter how bent or broken, can still be salvaged.
So if I could, I would go back and reverse the car crash
that was unfolding before my eyes.
4. If I could go back. Could: used to indicate ability in the past,
used with hypothetical situations. Modal verb.
Meaning: something that is no longer possible.
Was at one point, but is no longer.
5. But I will continue on with this bullshit make-pretend game,
because I was a bystander and slinging around my multiple options
like casino gambling chips, options I never took when I had the chance,
makes me feel better. If I could go back, I’d hook your bra behind
your back, pull your blouse down over your head,
slide it over your arms, yank up your underwear and jeans.
Get you up off the floor so fast all he’d see was a blur.
I’d be a tornado of action; I’d knock him over
like the twister that ravaged our family’s barn and left it high and dry,
leave him as splintered as a broken home with only one parent.
6. I may come from a long line of hot-blooded women, but then again
it’s always said that revenge is a dish best served cold.
So I would take all his clothes with me, leave him with only
the big shiny belt buckle he slung around his hips like a prize,
leave him naked and cold in the middle of the basement
like a dirty air mattress that’s been soaked by a flood.
Crush his pride like an empty Coke can and watch it deflate.
7. Peter Pan, Disneyland, the tooth fairy, they all taught us
that magic is possible. That sometimes a little angel dust
is all we need. If I could, I would wave my hands like a magic wand
and suction the beer out of your mouth , back into the red plastic cup
like a Roomba vacuum, watch the cup float back to the counter.
Back to the moment where I stood and watched as he poured
something into that same cup, something I foolishly hoped was sugar
or lemon juice or whiskey, something I knew
was anything but.
8. Back to the moment when your face
was still scrubbed clean, your ponytail still held all your hair back,
your eyes still full of light and not yet dead in your skin like
the x’ed out eyes of cartoon characters, back to the moment
where nothing had changed yet, wind knocking branches
against the window like warning signals, back to the moment
when nothing had happened, to the moment
before everything happened, back to the moment
before I could have done something,
but didn’t.