forever people
the girl on tv said I’m pretty
sure he’s my forever person
but what is a forever person
can you say a forever dog
I know they say forever house
has anyone who’s said
‘I want my person’
read that story by Schnitzler
in which a woman
and her lover go on a midnight ride?
their carriage overturns
and the woman leaves her lover
dying and walks like five miles
home because she doesn’t want
to be caught in ‘that part of town.’
he wasn’t her ‘person.’
houses and people don’t last forever
perhaps they mean they want someone
to die with
I wish there were a show
people lay in the grass
looking into each other’s eyes
where they check into a hotel
to die together in matching robes
or rent a cabin in the woods
like that Austrian prince
princess sissi’s son
like they do in japan ‘if not in this life
then the next’
why don’t they show me true love
—Christine Kwon
illustration by Happy Burbeck
