ashley dunn

    The State of Me, Love, This

    It has been 22 3 months
    And I wake up incredulous with you again
    (Like you used to, actually)
    But I’ll love you again
    By lunch
    Then they’ll be a tossing confusion
    (This is stronger when I’m hungover)
    But after a sandwich it’ll be greeting card love again: tidy and ignorant.

    Then I’ll talk to you in my head
    Or argue with
    Laugh at
    Torment you (but you’re really
    Tormenting me, aren’t you?)
    Then it’ll be that bottom-line love again
    And it’s testing and toing and froing
    And it ain’t achieving a lot
    And it ain’t poetic

    And it’s probably unhealthy (probably
    Medicalisable, too

    Along with all the rest of me—I mean

    Look at the state of this)

    (A version of this poem was first published in Roi Faineant Press, August 2022 (https://roifaineantarchive.wixsite.com/rf-arc-hive/post/the-state-of-me-love-this-by-ashley-dunn))

    The line breaks and hanging line indents may be incorrectly formatted because I cannot be bothered to fiddle with the HTML. View the correct formatting in the full collection Juveni… Doesn’t Matter (The Grey-Salmon Book) (and subscribe at the top of the page).

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