I think I finally figured it out. I mean,
why I never liked it when you called me “Baby”.
You only ever did it when I was naked—
lights off, sun down— but maybe
we didn’t know each other long enough
for you to say it
in the cold light of day.
People fall into a bed and become actors
and you call me “Baby”
like it’s a part to play—
your (part-time) Baby. Baby,
like it’s something that’s supposed to make me feel close to you
but you call me Baby and
I start drifting farther away.
Up and up and out,
out of this body
out of this bed, out of this room
out of this city where something better always waits around the corner.
Or, you tell yourself that there is.
I, for one, have never found anything good by looking.
Only by moving forward, tripping here and there.
Laughing at my own missteps and the beauty of it all.
Let me be touched by someone and have it feel like that—
Startling and real.
And let me be called by nothing
but my own name.
Emily Pille was born in a small suburb outside of Detroit, and her heart was set on writing and exploring the world shortly after. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in English, she went on to live in New York, Prague, Rome, and Seoul. She is currently pursuing a master’s in literary studies from Trinity College Dublin. She is motivated by the use of poetry as a form of activism, and seeks to convey feelings that a reader may not be able to express in their own words. As both writing and reading can be solitary ventures, Emily offers her work as a meeting point, an invitation to face — and relish — longing, desire, loneliness, and hope.