The first time he calls me babe, it’s the mid-90s again and I’m just a girl watching Bowie in the tightest leggings I have ever seen and wondering if I would ever dare to wish the wishes I had, since then, been directing at the moon—true love, beauty, escape, which are all, in the end, the same wish. When he calls me babe, I am finally her: the babe with the power, yet still unable to wield it. I play with my babe-heart, feed it things all newborns need—love, yes, and permanence, the wet bite of desire. We grow in the labyrinth, a wish-taker, a wish-granter—unreachable in his kingdom, his temple of black air. I eat its strange fruit and sleep under strange ceilings—two-headed peaches that make me forget, a mirror with a bed on the ceiling, crystals that I balance on the tip of my tongue, and every appetite hangs from the night, waiting. We make a life here, in this replica of heaven, but not quite. When I first tell him I love him, there is no answer, only the sight of the god turning away. To love is to resurrect what is ancient. Unfamiliar with goblin hearts, I am loved brutally, and reign. I circle the corridors in the night, searching for the core of him, and wake with myself in my mouth. When he calls me babe, it is finally my turn in the garden with the god in the tightest leggings I have ever seen. I am in love, I tell my mother, you will never see me again. I remember Anne Carson: your story begins the moment Eros enters you. And I am suddenly no longer a girl. I am pleasure remembering herself. The girl has always lived in the garden, you see. Now, my wishes are about the ingress. What did I wish for before? What do all girls wish for in the face of despair? To wish for true love is to wish for a god is to wish for that which appears and can never die. But there is no such thing as reunion when forever is involved. Beginning? End? They don’t exist here. I always know what happens next in the story. I go by many names but my favorite has always been babe. Being loved correctly makes you three dimensional, someone tells me in a dream. I take his hand. I devour a world.
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Adelina Sarkisyan is a poet, writer, and editor. With written work appearing in CRAFT Literary, Atticus Review, hex literary, Rust + Moth, HAD, and elsewhere, she is a multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. A therapist in a former life, she is on the editorial team at Undivided, which supports families raising children with disabilities. Sarkisyan was born in Armenia, once upon a time, and is a first-generation immigrant daughter. She lives and writes in Los Angeles. Find her on Instagram @adelinasarkisyan or at adelinasarkisyan.com.