Love Looks Pretty on You Read online

  Also by Lang Leav

  Poetry

  Love & Misadventure

  Lullabies

  Memories

  The Universe of Us

  Sea of Strangers

  Fiction

  Sad Girls

  For Michael,

  my love.

  Love Looks Pretty on You

  copyright © 2019 by Lang Leav. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

  Andrews McMeel Publishing

  a division of Andrews McMeel Universal

  1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106

  www.andrewsmcmeel.com

  www.langleav.com

  ISBN: 978-1-5248-5193-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018960375

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ATTENTION: SCHOOLS AND BUSINESSES

  Andrews McMeel books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail the Andrews McMeel Publishing Special Sales Department: [email protected].

  Introduction

  Six is the highest roll on the die, the Lovers in a tarot deck, and Virgo in the zodiac.

  My sixth poetry title, Love Looks Pretty on You, is a celebration of the female spirit. In this book I weave the threads of my past to complete the tapestry of my present. I reflect on my life to this point, as a woman and a creator who has come full circle.

  In this book I pay homage to my mother and to my sisters, all over the world.

  I celebrate the synergy of our work and relationships.

  The love we have for each other and, most importantly, the love we have for ourselves.

  Love looks pretty on you, and you should wear it with pride.

  x Lang

  At Last

  Love looks pretty on you. Makes you soft, tender, proud. Makes you sit up and take notice. Gives you a home to set down your things.

  What a blessing it is, to have music and dancing and poetry. What a gift it is, to look at someone and say,

  I’m so happy to have found you—at last, at last, at long, long last—you’re here.

  All this time, I thought I was writing for the lovers, when I’ve been writing for the writers.

  The Long Way

  You’re the girl who takes the long way home. This is the way you do it. This way you will have stories to tell. About lovers and liars, thieves and kings. You will have spine-chilling tales to spin.

  You will see the ones who rose so fast, dazzled for a moment before they crashed back down to earth, crawled back into the dust.

  But not you. Never you.

  This is the way you’ve always been. A hook at the end of a long, long line. Waiting patiently. You will get there and believe me when you get there: you will be glad you took your time.

  Don’t stay where you are needed. Go where you are loved.

  Making History

  History will look back on critics

  as one collective voice,

  tainted with bitterness,

  colored by their ignorance

  and failure to find

  the pulse of their generation.

  As for the poets,

  history will look back

  and know us by name.

  Endless Cycle

  You want to hurt your father for all the times he has made your mother cry. Because you’re the only one in the world he loves more than himself. So, in a weird, fucked-up way, you find yourself with someone just like him, and just like you wanted, you see the hurt in your father’s eyes. But it ends up hurting you too.

  And I can already picture us ten years from now, living our lives like parallel lines. Looking across at each other from time to time.

  Someone Else

  I don’t think it’s right, telling someone to stop needing somebody else. Have you ever felt the twist of loneliness in the pit of your stomach? Sat in silence with nothing to look forward to? The last thing you should do is tell someone they can fix it on their own. That no one else can fix it for them. Believe me, sometimes all it takes is someone else.

  This Year

  I am starting this year barefoot in the sand. Moonlight on my skin and sea-wind through my hair. Love in my heart and murder in my veins.

  This is not the year I leave to chance or karma. It is not a year to live and let live.

  If we have unfinished business, the wolves will be howling your name. If there is blood on your hands, you will get what you deserve.

  If you think you’re safe, all you’ve done is bought yourself time. If you think distance can protect you, I can cross oceans in a heartbeat.

  And if ever you find my name slipping from your memory, I can promise you, by the time this year is through, you will never forget it again.

  More or Less

  When love is seen

  from two points of view,

  what we were

  I can only guess.

  I am certain it was love

  with you—

  but to love,

  you did not confess.

  So was it I—

  Who made it more?

  Or was it you—

  Who made it less?

  I have buried myself so deep in my words that sometimes I can’t tell if I am the person writing or the one hiding between the lines.

  My Mother

  My mother was a woman

  without country as I lay

  curled in her womb.

  Her body marked for death,

  teeming with life. My life,

  barely a glow when she

  glared into the pit of darkness,

  a hairline crack from death,

  crawling to the light,

  dreaming of a faraway shore,

  and a little girl in her arms.

  My mother, my safe passage

  into this world, fought a war

  to show me wars can be won.

  How Love Leaves You

  There is no telling how you will love when you do, if you will let it consume you or free you. If love is a chain-link fence or a pair of wings. If love comes on a Monday morning or a Sunday afternoon. Who knows what gifts or sorrows it will bring?

  But we all know the story of how love leaves you, if you think back to when it last left. And if you’ve forgotten, let me remind you. How love never really ends. How your heart breaks the same way it beats, again and again, and again.

  Vultures

  We all have moments of darkness, moments when we are so unlike ourselves. And like vultures they wait for a slip, a misstep, then they take that part of us and try to convince the world that is all we are.

  Pandora’s Box

  Longing has a language

  that is all her own.

  The language of skin,

  the language of flowers.

  I am a body of longing,

  a vessel of language.

  For you, I am calamity

  in a locked box

  where the key is still turning.

  For you, I am a mistress

  in her ivory tower humming.

  For you, I a
m a songbird

  preening her feathers.

  For you, for you,

  I am a bed of roses,

  blooming.

  Every time I see my name, I hear it in your voice.

  Regrets

  There it is, that one thing in your past you wish you could undo. It sits in your mind like a big, red, tantalizing bow. A gentle tug is all it would take to set things right.

  If only you could get to it.

  But you can’t.

  Letter to the Past

  Tomorrow, you’re going to fall in love, and it won’t be pretty. Tell your mother, even though it will terrify her. Tell her you love him so much, that for once in your life, you don’t have words for it. Tell her it hurts when he looks at you, when he takes from you. Tell her how the sun has betrayed you, how she only carries his light. When he isn’t there, everything is a shadow of his absence.

  Don’t go upstairs with him. You’re going to regret it. He’ll never change. I know you’re so lonely you can’t stand it. The kind of lonely that has teeth. A lone wolf howling at the moon. There is a savagery to what you feel. It eats you up inside. But you will get through it; you don’t need his mouth to placate you. You don’t need his hands to untangle the butterfly knot in your heart. Your love is a fire that will burn itself out. Let it ravage you.

  Things are coming you can’t even imagine. If you knew what they were, you would forgive this one injustice, this one catastrophe that has brought your life to a screeching, screaming halt. The world will turn for you again, and when it does, it will take you anywhere you want.

  I have to go now, but I love you. I need to leave you, but I’ll always be with you. One day, you’ll meet me here, and I will tell you this: I will tell you that we made it.

  Loyalty

  The only ones

  they can turn

  against you

  are those

  who were never

  with you.

  I Should Have Left You Then

  In the glow of my eternal youth,

  when I had yet to learn my truth;

  in sun-soaked days I saw no end—

  I should have left you then.

  When my life felt like it wasn’t mine,

  and I knew I was running out of time;

  that if I didn’t leave, I’d never know—

  I should have let you go.

  When the world had yet its fill of me,

  and there was so much left to see;

  my love, I should have left you when,

  there was time for me to start again.

  I am in a tug-of-war with my past self. We’re fighting over who gets to keep you.

  Idols

  You put her on a pedestal. Love her, adore her, crown her as your queen. Then you watch and wait, for a slip, a split second when her guard is down. You would tear her into pieces just to claim a fragment of her story.

  No one can be perfect all the time. Why do you expect her to be any different? Why is she held to an impossible standard? Why do you take it so personally when she contradicts the version of herself that exists only in your head?

  You think you know her, that she owes you somehow. That her existence is only relative to yours. But she is her own person. She lives and breathes, she hopes and dreams. She has a life, a love, a family, a purpose. And she doesn’t owe anyone a damn thing.

  Your Right to Love

  It is your right to define love on your own terms. Love between two consenting adults is never wrong, no matter how much anyone tries to convince you it is.

  Be with the person who makes you happy. Who makes your heart sing.

  It is your right to endlessly curate your life.

  Let her be herself. Or she will be somebody else’s.

  Wonder

  The first thing you sent me were fireworks. Sparks of light and color over a bridge to nowhere. I was already in love when we met that summer; I belonged to someone else. To make room for you, I had to ask the world for permission, but every answer was a dead end. But who am I to blame them for telling me what I already knew?

  So, I danced around you like a storm, white light against the cool black sky, like strobe lights flickering on and off. I said we could be something, you and me. I said so much and meant it, but never proved it to you, did I? We both know what my word was worth, you and me both.

  You took my hand under a Ferris wheel, spitting light, spinning lies. You dazzled me, you know. You were incandescent. I don’t think we could have been anything, not really. But isn’t it something to wonder?

  You turn him into poetry because you can’t have him any other way.

  Before

  Before the dream is over,

  before our lives are set—

  before we’re good and sober,

  there’s a chance now for us yet.

  Before we grow too tired,

  before our spirits wane;

  let’s leave the calm and quiet,

  and never look back again.

  Let’s listen to the wise men,

  throw caution to the wind—

  to hell with a lifetime wondering

  of all that could have been.

  Let’s take this golden moment,

  and make a memory shine;

  for all our days and always—

  something that’s yours and mine.

  My Place

  My heart is deeply rooted in the place I came from. At times I am ashamed, others I am proud.

  In a single breath, I have gone from poverty to abundance.

  I love the place I have come to. At times I am proud, others I am ashamed.

  Sydney, 2007

  Today I saw a photograph of the Argyle tunnel, projected with light, blooming with flowers, and it brought back a decade-old memory.

  I was young and broken. But hopeful.

  I was alone as I walked through the tunnel, my keys splayed between the fingers of my clenched fist in a makeshift weapon.

  I was thinking, I should have left the party earlier. I was thinking, I should have asked someone to walk me to my car. I was thinking of the long drive ahead. I was thinking of the porch light my mother always left on for me.

  As that girl, I couldn’t see the future ahead. As the woman now, I can see it all. The pitfalls, the tragedies, the near misses and close calls, the years of wanting, waiting, wishing. The agony and beauty of my strange and twisted path.

  I can see it all for her, as she is walking through that tunnel, not knowing what is waiting for her on the other side.

  I wish I could tell her that we made it home.

  Too Young

  (Written at twelve years of age)

  Too young for love

  Too young to know

  How far a touch

  A kiss can go

  Too old for comfort

  Or childhood charms

  Too old to be held

  In my mother’s arms

  The world is hard

  When you’re in between

  Your future world

  And childhood dreams

  Refugees

  You don’t think about life when you are living it, or love when you are loved. You don’t think about hunger when there is abundance, or your dreams when they’ve come to fruition.

  You think less about yourself and how you got to be here, and more about others who want to be where you are. And that’s how it should be. Finding a place for yourself, then stretching your arms out to the rest of the world.

  How do I thank my mother

  for giving me the life

  she desperately wanted

  for herself?

  What You Wish For

  Change is the anthem of this year. For better. For worse. I am bracing m
yself for the crash, steeling myself for the fall. I am swimming in a sky-blue sea where I can’t tell which way is up.

  You know, I used to be a love letter, folding endlessly into myself. For your eyes only. Now I am torn into a thousand pieces, my soul a burst of confetti raining words onto the world.

  Something tells me it’s been a long time coming. Someone whispers, Be careful what you wish for. Because the heart can’t retract what it once wanted. Didn’t you know it is the universal law?

  Now go back to the years you waited. All that time you spent yearning. Be careful what you wish for. It never comes the way you think.

  Force a smile for the camera

  Bite your tongue

  You can taste blood in your mouth,

  can’t you?

  Think of what you gave up to get here

  You haven’t eaten in days

  Slept in fits and starts

  Not even sure you want

  what you’re so afraid to lose

  You can feel it can’t you?

  A metal spring twisting

  through your body

  A wind-up doll in fancy dress

  A jack-in-the-box at every turn

  What’s next?

  Your face on someone else’s body

  Someone else’s words in your mouth

  Your life is worth less

  than their fifteen minutes

  But that’s the trap you set for yourself

  Your freedom for this

  Your peace of mind for this