the horse-girl/cowboy dichotomy wants you
to ride it home for so long it breaks like a heart
in a western, maybe lonesome dove, maybe
some other series, maybe something real.
you ask your lover to unravel: you are given
a toothpick and told to knock yourself out.
at the bottom of the ocean, you learn to eat the unloved
fish first, so you don’t need to watch
every heart break twice. “I built a barn
for my horses and a life for
the last woman who said I love you back,”
your lover writes, to the woman he’s been wanting
to want him for some time. she twists long grass into jewelry
she wears high around her biceps, in the place
you always cover on yourself with a shirt. you don’t mind.
honest. like you, your lover has never wanted anybody,
even her, even you, more than he wanted to feel loved back.
