Nothing Really Fits When You’re Changing Every Day

A poem inspired by Charlotte Carpenter’s “Love Songs”
I looked at him, hard.
He said,
you are an arrow, being pulled back and back and back. The further back you feel you go, the farther forward you’ll be propelled.
And science, it says that you’ll fly through a universe of everything you never thought possible,
collecting ideas like Pokémon cards
that you’ll take to the playground of your tribe
dressed in neon and red lipstick and where it’s the law that you have to wear a headscarf with horses printed on.
You’ll swap your collection for better ones, bigger ones, dreams worth more
until you complete the set you’ve been trying to finish since forever.

I walked home
and thought about what he’d said
as I left.

Nothing really fits, he whispered into my neck, when you are changing every day.

And pulling away he separated the arrow from the bow,
launching me forward with the weight of his words.
It was truth.

Nothing ever fits, when you are changing every day.

Fuck, I said to nobody, as I watched the ground at my feet move stone by stone.

It must be hard always being split in two, he said,
the next day when I returned.
Working to give everything two meanings
to avoid the calamity of something fixed.

Can you teach me everything you know?
I said.
You already know more than you think,
He replied.

I said,
If nothing really fits when you are changing every day
I can’t stretch the lights of the universe around my belly
to wear long, as a skirt, to that playground you said I’d go to
so that it drags on the floor like a bridal train and makes everybody say,
wow. She must really be a somebody with a dress made of the stars.

If nothing really fits when you’re changing every day
I’ll have to find something different to wear tomorrow
and building my kingdom every day
makes me tired.

It’s easier if it all stays the same.

Wear your skirt that drags on the ground,
he said.
And on the first day and the second day and third day and the fourth,
they’ll say
wow. She must really be a somebody with a dress made of the stars.

Yes, I said.

He said,
and then the hem will tear,
and the shine will dull,
and soon you’ll be in rags of something that used to be.

No, I said.

Well then,
do you see how you have to be brave.
do you see
you must wear the moon as a necklace and the stars as a badge,
and know that it will never be forever
no matter how hard you try.

It’s hard to change, but you must,
else dress in yesterday’s rags.

And I said to him
Yes.
I knew what he meant.
Nothing really fits when you’re changing every day.

So now I change anyway.
Change every day.
And I wear the stars,
Every way
that I can.