The Morning After by Venesa Marco
The morning after a one night stand
You will search for the God left in you
He will be standing still
Somewhere away from home
This will be the day Heaven will seem too far
You will not acknowledge him
Instead,
You will bathe in scalding water
Attempting to wash away your sins
You will make of your body a vessel for dying things
You will blame the alcohol
You will blame your mothers absence
You will blame it on an act of rebellion
You will blame
And blame
And blame
In the car ride home
There will be music
But you will not hear a sound
Last night you swallowed a man with no name
There will be no praises for this
You will tell yourself
“This is how you become a woman”
“This is how you make sense of senseless things”
You will tell yourself
“Sex is a senseless thing”
Reduce it to a dance of bodies
To the exhaustion of breath
Still, you gave your breath away to a man
That will not know the proper way to write your name
That will not know all the Jazz you listen to
All the canvases you paint
Still, you gave your breath away to a man
That will not know the wake of your body
Only the slumber of thighs
You will speak of sex
You will not know love
The morning after a one night stand
You will learn to love like an object
Like a thing that can be touched
But does not know how to feel
You will love like a clock
Passing time but not waiting for anything
You will love like a door
You will salute your lovers upon their arrival
And close yourself off after their departure
You will love like an instrument
Your sound will be entirely dependent
On others hands
You will love like cars – mechanical
You will love like paint – temporary
You will love like books – a finished thing
You will love like a poem
Written in the aftermath of a reckless exchange
Then tucked away never to be said out loud
You will make of that poem a shameful doing
The morning after a one night stand
You will greet the mirror and not recognize
Your own reflection
God will have stripped away
All the girl left in you
She will be left dangling from a thread
Trying to find the rib
Men have claimed will make a woman out of her
Finally,
When the ribcage is built
You will not miss the girl
You will fall in love with the woman
God has left in her place
This new woman will know
That she is a learning body
A sometimes lonely body
And, when a body is lonely
It does beautifully reckless things
The morning after a one night stand
Means nothing to a woman
It is the days that follow
That mean everything
The days when the dust settles
And she realizes
She was just a body
In the presence of a lonely night
That did an increadibly beautiful reckless thing
