Bug bite

My first concert alone

wasn’t so bad.

Nor was last Friday’s dinner—

Though two friends cancelled

a few hours before.

My favorite bracelet snapped.

It cost four dollars.

I could let it go.

A bug bit my eye at night.

I laugh at my monstrous side, 

because neither hurt. 

Everything arrives so new.

What else is there to do

but welcome it—

Can’t turn away a stranger

for being strange.

But you're leaving for Berlin,

just as I arrive in New York—

that I cannot welcome, I cannot embrace.

It is the kind of novelty

I most despise.

The sort that strips away what I know,

offering nothing better in return.

The thought of learning you—

only to unlearn you—

is loss rehearsed in advance.

For that, I cannot laugh. 

I can only scratch,

But it stings no less.