“If a man is only as good as his word, 

then I want to marry a man with a vocabulary like yours.

The way you say dicey and delectable and octogenarian
in the same sentence — that really turns me on.
The way you describe the oranges in your backyard
using anarchistic and intimate in the same breath.

I would follow the legato and staccato of your tongue 

wrapping around your diction 

until listening become more like dreaming 

and dreaming became more like kissing you.

I want to jump off the cliff of your voice 

into the suicide of your stream of consciousness. 

I want to visit the place in your heart where the wrong words die. 

I want to map it out with a dictionary and points 

of brilliant light until it looks more like a star chart 

than a strategy for communication. 

I want to see where your words are born. 

I want to find a pattern in the astrology.

I want to memorize the scripts of your seductions. 

I want to live in the long-winded epics of your disappointments, 

in the haiku of your epiphanies. 

I want to know all the names you’ve given your desires. 

I want to find my name among them,

‘cause there is nothing more wrecking sexy than the right word. 

I want to thank whoever told you 

there was no such thing as a synonym. 

I want to throw a party for the heartbreak 

that turned you into a poet.

And if it is true that a man is only as good as his word 

then, sweet jesus, let me be there 

the first time you are speechless, 

and all your explosive wisdom becomes 

a burning ball of sun in your throat, 

and all you can bring yourself to utter is, oh god, oh god.”

― Mindy Nettifee

Boomerang

Coming back home is like traveling in a time machine.

Does it happen to others as well? I guess it does. 

I step into my room, and I’m transported to 1999. 2000. 

It’s like the there is a whole other me just sitting in that room, waiting. To greet the older me, to remind her of who she used to be.

All the old memories, the old feelings, the dreams - it all comes rushing back. So visceral that I can feel it like it’s part of my present. I can taste those moments on the tip of my tongue, my fingers.

Like time has just stopped, waiting for me to catch up instead of the other way round. 

And my room, the smell, the photographs, the hidden mementos tucked away at the back of a locked up drawer with its rusty hidden key are all waiting alongside.

And I’m back again.

In that life, in that love, in that space between staying young and growing up, innocence and heartbreak, moving on and forever staying still. 

 Almost like I am still that silly, naive girl. Like I never really left.