I am blonde, as ice, as ash,
an expensive Danish modern credenza
glossed & high-maintenance, or
I am dark-haired, cut
blunt. Bangs like razors,
like a blunted razor dragged
across my forehead.
I work too much at a job
that is not cute, not a children’s
bookstore, not in publishing, candy-
colored cardigans & coffee runs, or
I do not work, the daughter of rich
parents. I wore a plaid skirt
to school, rode horses for sport.
I do not like that thing that you like—
video games, table tennis, Star
Trek memorabilia. This is a problem.
I am demanding. I make demands:
commit to me, love me, marry me.
I drop hints like the other
woman drops everything in her handbag
at your feet. Her inability to hold on
to things, charming. My desire to hold on
to you turns me stuffy & mean,
because, after all, it’s easy to forget
that I was once the girl in love,
that the movie was once about me.
Meghan Phillips is the fiction editor for Third Point Press and an associate editor for SmokeLong Quarterly. You can find her writing at meghan-phillips.com and her tweets @mcarphil. She lives in Lancaster, PA.