I Wish I Knew You Before I Knew You

I wish I knew you before I knew you. 

Long before I knew you. 

Before anything or anyone hurt you. 

I wish I could go back and save you.

Hold you before anything hurt,

before they cracked and broke you.

When you were a kid catching fireflies, 

still hopeful, before anyone touched you.

Before they made you cry and feel small.

Before you lost your milk tooth. 

I wish I could have taken you. 

I'd trade being whatever I am to you 

to save you. 

To rescue you. 

I would go back and kidnap you.

That is how much I love you. 

They would chase us as I drive

somewhere far away to raise you.

Maybe to Nebraska. 

Stopping for gas in a beat-up car 

as you sleep in the backseat curled in a ball

under a blanket of stars

with a bear named Ziggy Stardust,

who I bought for you.

We would drive all night, far away,

with new names to a new place

where no one's storm could get you wet. 

I'd get a job at a mill or a plant.  

Teach you baseball and how to fish.  

An old lady from church would learn you piano 

and how to be a lady. Things I can't.

We'd buy a farmhouse with a million fireflies 

down a dirt lane of wildflowers

where you could grow up with love, 

and friends, and never be hurt.

You wouldn't know the pain you know

because nothing bad would happen to you. 

It was killed by me, preemptively, 

because I stole you before they hurt you.

That is how much I love you.

I don't want anyone else but you.

I don't think I ever have —

even before I knew you. 

Though we hadn't met,

and I didn't even know of you, 

I was looking for you. 

My ghost loved your ghost some time before

and followed you. 

That is why no one else ever stuck. 

Or I found something in them intolerable, or boring, or annoying enough to leave —

when all it ever was is that they weren't you.

No fault of their own, of course. 

It wouldn't have ever worked out with them, you know?

I was just wasting my time until I met you.  

I wish I could take away every terrible word ever said to you. 

Every bad thing ever done to you.

All the neglect and abuse you suffered.

When we made love, how I tried to. 

Those things you confessed to me 

when you felt you had to explain why you couldn't love like I do. 

Everything that has ever made you feel small or unloved,

I would take them for you. 

Suffer them. Bury them. Absorb them. 

Eat them like poison for you. 

Every bad thing you've ever seen. 

Every time someone let you down, or beat you.

I wish it was me that was bereaved and not you.

I wish I could bleed for you.

I realize then, of course, if I would alter you, 

your life would have been happier 

and you wouldn't have been in that lonely place when and where we met. 

Likely, we wouldn't have met at all. 

You would be erased from my life, 

and all the fun that we had would be gone, too.  

You would have fallen in love with someone else before I had a chance to find you.

There wouldn't have been alcoholism 

or suicidal thoughts that washed you 

further out to sea. 

Further to, then further away from me.

Like that island we rowed to. 

Though I once was a refuge, it was short-lived.

And you fell from me, fell into another 

who will not be any different

for he hasn't the glue to fix what is broken—

what is broken in you.

As much as I love you, I think 

I would rather have not been at all. 

Not ever to have met you, in this life at least,  

or to kiss you, 

or to have fallen in love with you.

Never to have made love with you.

Never to have created a child with you 

who looks like you, in a certain mood.

In a certain light, or when she laughs, 

or when she cries.

I'd trade it all to go back and fix you 

so you could be you. 

Though I'd miss you, you'd be a better you —

whole and loved. 

Able to see the beauty in yourself, to love yourself and someone else as I loved you.

Happy, not angry. 

Cheerful, not depressed. 

You would look at the world 

with a different view. 

But I realize, however impalpable you now are, 

I do have you. 

Still I have you. 

I have half of you. 

Our daughter, who looks like you. 

Who I protect from the things that hurt you.

An umbrella I've become. A shield. 

An airbag for a collision that hasn't yet occured.

Because I love her as I loved you.

We have Nebraska and these fireflies,

which are like the confetti of a disintegrated sun

she catches in a bell jar.

She picks wildflowers

with Ziggy Stardust the bear. 

I wish you could see the sunset here,

the enormous golden ball that the sun balls into. 

Swing on the porch swing with us as the bugs sing. 

Yesterday she lost her milk tooth.

I keep it in my pocket 

because I don't want to lose her. 

I raise her just as I would have raised you, 

if I could have gone back and stole you.

I would have kept your milk tooth, too. 

But though you are her, and she is you,

you have gone to wherever you've gone

and I go my own way, too. 

Still I wish you could see her from wherever it is that you blew. 

Wherever the wind carried you.

I wish I knew you before I knew you. 

Long before I knew you. 

Before anything or anyone hurt you. 

I tell my ghost not to look for you, 

but I'm afraid, my love, he will do what he will do.