Let me write a poem about something
that matters: sometimes
I'll sleep on your couch.
Your head on my lap.
We aren't in love though;
that would be too awkward, too
much. You only just lost your
head-on-lap virginity here
on your on-campus apartment couch.
Let's stop moving too fast, it's
too much. Let's busy ourselves sometimes
(all the time). Stop thinking
this matters. It's only love,
the kind you pour into bottles to steep,
to look back upon in thirty years to see
if the flavor has changed.
If love still smells like the hints of perfume clinging
to the apartment couch.
I promise it hurts either way
Hazel J. Hall