LOVE POEM FOR FIKA

DO YOU REMEMBER?

Do you remember how it was that I came to love you by mistake?
How I stumbled upon you: a sullen girl,
a sullen girl with a forced smile,
a sullen girl with a hand-me-down heart?

You’d tried before and lost, you said: all hope, all care, all laughter -
there was nothing left - and you’d made me promise magic.
Do you remember how I’d lived as a conjurer?
How I sang you hymns, hymns for the dead inside,
tried to spark belief in fools outside yourself?

How from each hat I tried to pull new mornings
to dazzle you with, a master of illusion:
all mirrors and smoke and abracadabras?
You only blinked.

I remember.
I remember that I was the one enchanted,
the one to fall beneath the charm,
the charm of fixing broken things,
that I had love up my sleeve,
love: to play as a last card;
love: for that, you’d gasp and you’d applaud.
I am not the only boy who’s tricked himself.JM