Mary Oliver to Zen Mateo
(after Marty McConnell’s “Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell”)
this is your life and you have to start living it
all by yourself in the candlelight, girlheart.
there’s a lot more to it than just this, of course.
light matches, burn fingers, light more.
there is a bottle of pink veuve in your fridge
that you had been waiting to drink with your lover
(the same lover who only started saying “forever”
after they had already left you)
open it instead if you get that job you really want
or use it to toast all the other love in your life,
all the love that chose to stay,
the love that chooses you over and over
you don’t own champagne flutes yet, but you’ll get them.
brush the tears from your cheeks and look closely
at the life that blooms around you
get down on one knee and ask for your own hand
say yes again and again and keep saying yes
until you believe it.
until she believes it — this soft spoken hurricane of a woman
promise her your whole heart. promise to protect her.
promise to laugh at all her jokes and
to never give her away.
