Taylor Brunson
“This Is What Comes of Telling the Truth, or Even Part of It”
Now he’s chasing her and you’re chasing him
and I’m chasing you - who’s chasing me?
Turns out I’m bad like you’re bad, Jules,
only after what the mind gains in outfoxing
the heart. I’ve watched every moment pass by
so many times, your baby hairs windy-citied,
so much water under the bridge,
and I somehow never learn. How we’ll talk
ourselves into anything, like baby, I don’t want you
and I don’t have you and even now you are mine.
Under all this hair, our minds turn in their quiet
scheming to hold prior claim. The truth:
he was my worst kept secret. The actual truth:
I can’t trust myself not to call someone else
by his name, and I don’t trust myself
to call him anything but baby. Jules, I never would
have envisioned myself slipping you on.
Now I know I’ll never be the best woman,
always the bad guy, and I just want to wear you
like a ring. I’m stuck wanting what I shouldn’t.
I’ve been too arrogant and scared to see
myself for what I am and now, Jules,
I’m just scared of doing anything else. Nothing
we’re capable of is forgivable, but I’ll turn
back to the moments before, where your tears
cradle the only light under the bridge
and all I can give anyone is a song.
Taylor Brunson is a poet whose work has been featured in perhappened, Moist Poetry Journal, and The Ex-Puritan. She serves as an assistant poetry editor for Four Way Review and an assistant nonfiction and poetry editor for Nashville Review. Taylor can be found on Twitter, @taylor_thefox.
