To the Girl who Works at the Starbucks down the Street from my House on Delmar Heights Road, Swear to God, I’m not a stalker
by Rudy Francisco
To the girl who works at the Starbucks down the street from my house on Delmar Heights Road, swear to God, I’m not a stalker. That’s the title. When I asked you for a chai latte, what I meant was, I was walking past, I saw you in the window. To be honest, I only came in here because I had to know what your voice sounded like. Instead of saying that, I got really nervous and ordered the first thing on the menu. I don’t even know what chai is. Or a latte, for that matter. I imagine that when God made you, I bet he cussed for the first time. I bet he turned to an angel, gave him a high-five, and said goddamn, I’m good. Or me damn I’m good, cause he’s like God, right? I spent the last five days trying to figure out how I’m going to introduce myself to you properly. I finally figured it out, it’s going to be something like “Hi.” That’s all I got so far, but I think it’s a good start. I’m gonna be honest, it’s not often that I find myself eager to write about love. In fact, every time I try to write about love, my hands cramp, just to show me how painful love can be. Sometimes my pencils break just to prove to me that every now and then, love takes a little more work than you planned. I heard that love is blind, so I write all my poems in Braille. And my poems are never actually finished because true love is endless. I’ve always believed that real love is kind of like a supermodel before she’s airbrushed. It’s pure, and imperfect just the way that God intended. I’m gonna be honest, I’m not much of a love poet, but if I was to wake up tomorrow morning and decide that I was gonna write about love, my first poem- it would be about you. About how I love you the same way I learned how to ride a bike: scared, but reckless, with no training wheels or elbow pads, so my scars can tell the story of how I fell for you. I’m gonna be honest, I’m not much of a love poet, but if I was, I’d write about how I see your face in every cloud, your reflection in every window. You see, I’ve written a million poems hoping that somehow maybe some way, you’ll jump out of the page and be closer to me. See I’m not much of a love poet, but if I was, I’d write about how you have the audacity to be beautiful even on days when everything around you is ugly. I’d write about your eyelashes and how they are like violin strings that play symphonies every time you blink. If I was a love poet, I’d write about how I melt in front of you like an ice sculpture every time I hear the vibration in your voice and whenever I see your name on the caller ID, my heart plays hopscotch inside of my chest. It climbs onto my ribs like monkey bars, and I feel like a child all over again. And I know it’s gonna sound weird, but sometimes I pray that God somehow turns you back into one of my ribs just so I would never have to spend an entire day without you. And I swear I’m usually not a love poet, but if I was to wake up tomorrow morning and decide that I was going to write about love, my first poem- it would be about you. And after all of that, she was like, “But how do you feel about me?” And I said, “Put it like this, I want to be your ex-boyfriend’s stunt double. I want to do everything he never had the courage to do, like trust you.” See, last night I had a dream. In this particular dream, I died in my dreams, awoke not knowing I was still sleeping, decided to walk. See, that night, I walked in my sleep, I slept in my walk, I walked backwards until I saw you for the first time and I could barely muster the courage to introduce myself all over again. You see, I’ve been trying to find the right words. I’ve been trying to take the right steps to what seems to me like thousands of years, but something always seems to go wrong between us. We lived in Egypt, I was the Pharaoh’s slave, you were his daughter. Loving you led to my death. They claimed I seduced you, and after they stole my life, I was resurrected as a mason, I made the foundation for your house. We met eyes for two seconds, you left, then I didn’t see you again until I died. I came back as a caterpillar, I turned into a butterfly, I landed in the palm of your hands, you brushed me away and the rejection killed me. When I woke, I was a kick drum, you were a snare; we were both owned by this drummer named Cozy Cole and when he died, so did we, but I came back just to look for you. I left notes in random places hoping that you would stumble across them, I carved our names in trees and then prayed that it would jog your memory. I whispered your name in the wind, hoping somehow, maybe some way, my voice would reach you, but it didn’t, and I died- I died early, I died young with bread crumbs in my hand just hoping that you would find me, but you never did, so they buried me. When they buried me, they put these coins over my eyes and I used them as bus fare to get back to earth just so I could look for you. That’s why sometimes when we hold hands, every so often, I hold on a little too tight, and I’m sorry. I just don’t want to lose you again. My mother told me, when you find the perfect woman, you gotta do whatever it takes to make sure she stays next to you.
More about Rudy:
I dedicate my hearing of this poem to my partner Lynette.
Peace, dwight
“To the Girl who works at Starbucks down the street from my house on Del Mar Heights Road, I swear to God I’m not a stalker”
