for Daniela Jara's 20th birthday on 6.21.04

three days from now
she will rise up to the playground of angels
fighter jets and zeppelins
burst open the door
translate her body into an equation
of one–hundred twenty pounds moving
nine–point–eight meters per second per second
and tumble from heaven
because she wants to taste the sky
on her birthday

this is the part of the poem
where I should drop metaphors
about falling in love with her
or how she's already fallen from heaven once
or something about shooting stars
or glass ceilings
but this isn't a love poem

I said I would fall alongside her
stretch out fingers to find her
falling ninety miles an hour
doesn't scare me nearly
as much as forgetting her touch

the romantic in me said
if her parachute does not open,
I will not open mine
instead, I would rather impress myself
emboss myself into the earth
next to her
so that the soil remembers me following her
always
until the crater I create
speaks poetry without my body there

she called me silly

I said
if her parachute does not open,
there is no reason to open mine

she said that if her parachute doesn't open
she'll reach the earth first
and she wondered what it would sound like

I said that it would sound like a dream exploding
it would sound like all the poems in history
being read simultaneously
it would echo across the earth
making poets of every language weep
like a thousand hearts breaking in unison


she wondered if it would be more like a 'thud'
or a 'squish'

I said that if my parachute doesn't open
I would hit first
so she could hear the sound
and in the next life, moments later,
she could tell me
she said I would have to wait her lifetime
for that story
and how much it would suck
to get her car keys from my pocket
so she could drive home

this isn't a love poem
because three days from now
she will fall away from me
and she doesn't want me to catch her

this isn't a love poem
because she wants to fall alone
I know now
I've never been good enough for her
she knows now
that she never needed me in the first place
that our kisses were forgettable
that the press of our skins together beneath sheets
kept her warm some nights
but that anyone else would do

she's not the kind of woman
who will wait for anyone to follow her
even at terminal velocity
she wants to fall alone
which is why I write these love poems

three days from now
my heart will become a projectile
as she shatters herself through heaven
from the other side

to her
this isn't a love poem
it's just some crap to read
before she leaps from the door
and tastes the sky
alone

to me
only the sky knows
what this feels like