I Want Things I Cannot Have

I want to be beautiful.

I want hair so long and thick I become one of those women on television who push it behind their shoulder Slowly, sensually, knowingly.

I want a boy to love me.

To look at me with the hunger people reserve for miracles. To say my name like it carries relief inside it. I want to be the pearl of great price, the thing worth losing everything for.

I want things I cannot have.

I want my father to love my mother. Or at least perform it convincingly. A kiss before work. A reluctance to leave. A flicker in his eyes when she enters a room. Just something.

I want things I cannot have.

I want tete Tendai.

I want her gentleness to bandage my bruised soul the way she bandaged my knees with betadine when at the age of four I tried to scrub the blackness from my knees thinking it was dirt. She taught me it was me.

I want one more terrible bottle of wine. One more loud laugh. One more foolish argument — “You alligator.” “No, you.”

I want to unearth her bones and crawl inside her skeleton, because that is the safest place I have ever known. That is the most love I’ve ever felt.

I want Paradise.

I want things I cannot have.