SAINT VALENTINE

POETRY BY NELLE RAIN

I’ve fallen into a Wikipedia labyrinth. I think I started on dactylic poetry, now I’m reading about Saint Valentine. Maybe I ought to be thinking of you, but instead I’m remembering last autumn: when she turned to me and asked “are you dating him?”

I looked away.

No.

Yes?

“I’m not sure.”

She hummed. Through my squint-smeared vision, the light caught in her curls became a halo. “That’s probably not good,” she said.

I’ve finished the page on Saint Valentine. Two thousand eight hundred and thirty-four words. Only three hundred and thirty-eight are about romance. I wonder what he thinks of this holiday bearing his name. Maybe the next link will tell me, but I close the tab instead.

“Don’t make it harder than it is,” she said. The sun retreated behind the trees. The gold-leaf glow was only wisps of hair. “You’re right.”

I won’t. (I will).

I changed the subject. Because how do I say that a false smile stings more than anything you could hide behind it? How do I say that I could tell you this a thousand ways but the only one you’ll recognize is aloud but aloud is the only one I can’t do.