A Tinder Guy Opened the Conversation with, Can I Have You?
Rent from DeepDyve- A Tinder Guy Opened the Conversation with, Can I Have You?
But I'm not a 43-inch flat screen.I'm not a penny turning liberty greenin the left pocket of somebody's chinos.Would he have me for ten minuteson the futon in his studio apartment?For the night? For the week? For the year?For our entire lives? Into the foggy afterlife?Would he have me when I'm done with me?Maybe he'd spend time every nightdusting me. Take me to the mechanicwhen my anxiety flared up. Someday sell mein a garage sale with the other itemshe had but didn't want any more.
When John Legend sings he wantsall of you and for you to want all of him,it seems like he wants reciprocal having.I think a lot of people want this.To have and to hold, from this day forward.These words have made me cry,my friends so in love and shaking.But, still, having another seems risky.An ex once told me she felt like my boobsbelonged to her. In a way, she was sayingshe had them. I didn't like this.She and I would repeat you're mine,you're mine, you're mine to each otheruntil, after several months, we lostinterest in such ownership.
My most recent love scolded mefor saying I needed her and then asked meto make her breakfast, which I did, althoughthere was only one egg left, which I gave to her, [End Page 18] and thinking about this now doesn't clarifyanything except that maybe these peoplewho don't receive replies from meare poor stand-ins for what I don't havewith her anymore. And I wonder how I'd feelif the next guy holding a giant, crestfallen mackerelasked me, Would it be all right if one day I needed you? [End Page 19]
Brett Hanley has an MFA from McNeese State University and recently served as the poetry editor for the McNeese Review. She is currently a PhD candidate in poetry at Florida State. Her poetry is forthcoming or has been published in Juked, Crab Creek Review, Underblong, North American Review, Hotel Amerika, apt, and elsewhere.
