By KATE BESTALL
Truth is, I never get drunk but I make an excellent party girl. You,
who always misunderstood both me & the alcohol, you’ll swallow
the moon & startle when it burns. Oh, honey, you should know: nothing
stays full forever. Didn’t your hunger teach you that? To tell the truth, I
can hardly stand the taste of whiskey but I do love to subvert expectations.
And somehow you thought I’d let the word mother slide down my throat easily. Oh,
your seasonal sweetness, your convenient amnesia: it’s not my fault
you don’t know me.
You should know: I don’t regret it.
I asked myself, then: what’s the worst
that could happen? You, wrecking
all my plans. I gave you my love & challenged you
to do your worst. You, changing my machinery. You,
switching out my parts. The worst: I actually
considered it. Letting you. Oh, moon-swallower,
my magician: I know you have
your tricks. Somehow you pulled compromise
after compromise out of me. Did I ever tell you? That I
grew up in a town named after a pine tree, & it nearly killed me.
I once lived in a house called winter
& yes, the dying was beautiful.
Don’t you know a road is only worth driving
if it can send you, headlights & all, plummeting down a mountain?
Don’t tell me you can’t drive in the mountains; I know that, I know
how to lean into the curve like my dad taught me, I-70 is a god
you must learn to worship, lips against the asphalt: yes, amen,
keep me awake tonight & help me to see every deer before it leaps, but
if I spin out on my way home there are worse ways to go. Every time
I’m not there I practically am: even in your arms there I am, driving
home into the infinite dark, past the backyard I buried my gods in,
spending $3.47 a gallon on gas. I’m allergic to pine trees, & I
grew up in a town named after one, & isn’t that on the nose: I hated
it, but now, like every ex-lover, I want it back—really, it’s not about you.
It’s not about you, I just
chase winter wherever I can find it: keeping
the gloves in my pocket, the 1am walk to your room.
The whisper of wasteland against my collarbone;
breathing, fogged;
frozen memory, all just to fall
into your heat. Is it really so
astonishing that I would’ve done anything for warmth?
This is a love poem with a punchline. I swear I’d love anything,
vinegar or honey. I’m sorry, I’m a bad liar
with something to prove.
To tell the truth, I liked being allowed to want you:
the selfishness of letting my gaze linger
without guilt. There’s no word for the shiver of your hand over my hipbone.
So I slept in the bed of someone I didn’t trust. What’s the worst that could happen?
Believe me, my love, I really tried to choke it down. The joke: would I be wife or organ donor?
The punchline: there’s no punchline. Only the hostile witness of my body.
No one stays full forever, so now I bleach myself
with vinegar & drive out of January. Back in my own room, I
take my Zyrtec every morning. You always get what you want. You,
with your soft eyes & magician’s fingers & the two times I saw you cry, tracing
circles on my back. Truth is, it was always about you.
Writer | Kate Bestall ‘27 | kbestall27@amherst.edu
Editor | Elsa Lyons ‘27 | elyons27@amherst.edu
Artist | Amaya Ranatunge ‘27 | aranatungearachchi28@amherst.edu