The Free World

I bind my old      grievances
    to a helium balloon.      A long memory,

I have been warned,
    is a curse.      Everywhere I go,      someone

has something      they must say      about you.
    Nobody knows      who we are.      Wouldn't you say,

nobody      agonizes like we do.
    Elsewhere

is a promise      and a threat.
    I have been proscribed

compassion      of the wrong sort, and so
    I am alone.      I am

invisible within you.      Seeking companionship
    I spend      my afternoons      before the windows

of pet shops and      strangers, trying
    to decide.      After all, I was told

I could have everything.
    I thought      this was meant to be

a romance:      I was delivered here
    in order to love you.

I was delivered here
    and ordered

to love you. If      we could be friends.
    I wore this new      dress for you.

Poem originally appeared in The Baffler, issue #21. Reprinted with the permission of the author. All rights reserved.