Someday I'll Forgive Lara Egger
        (after Frank O'Hara/Roger Reeves/Ocean Vuong, Et al.)

You say you adore your dog
more than anyone else on the planet.
Lara, is the feeling mutual?
You think sharing a needle is more intimate
than sex. Your therapist was right:
a medium-sized ocean is still an ocean.
You were, after all, the glitter bomb
exploding Mike and his, thanks-to-you, ex.
Get over it—you're not the only one
struggling to make it in love's gig-economy;
nobody forced your heart
to go dumpster-diving on weekends.
I'm sorry, Lara, you can't origami
every sorry into moonlight.
Sorry, not sorry, your cellulite
is as stubborn as your regret.
Let's think back to the moment
you first volunteered for ruin.
Was it posing for the class photo
when you leaned long and hard
into Mr Duyvestein, his arm snaked
around your waist? Or that other time
in high school, when the waiter
referred to you as your father's girlfriend,
and how your father, beaming, (and you,
you were gleaming) gave a quick wink,
and ordered you another rum and coke?
No matter how many times
you retriangulate the distance between you
and the stars, no one will ever
know the whole truth about you.
But I do, Lara. I do. And part of me
wants to forgive you. Part of me wishes
I could hold up mercy's mirror
and tell you this is the person
you always thought you'd become.
Maybe someday I'll forgive you.
For reserving tenderness for strangers.
Even for your browser history.
I'll excuse your smugness when you judged
you were the thinnest woman in the room.
I'll forgive you, Lara. Like a dog trained
to forgive anger. The way a snowflake
forgives the scorch of an outstretched hand.

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Copyright © 2022 Lara Egger All rights reserved
from Conduit
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission