“Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic.”

While many have attributed this quote to Frida Kahlo, it’s actually from a poem entitled “Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell.” When I tracked it down, I felt chills from the beginning:

“leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone…”

I felt myself sink down into the words, felt them resonate deep within me. Because I know that leaving isn’t enough. I know from tough, personal experience that you can leave a relationship with your body and stay inside of it in your mind. I did that once. The relationship was good and gone, but I remained mired inside of it for weeks after.

It’s not enough just to leave. We have to find a way to move on, too.

I love the idea of retraining one’s heart and changing the locks—because it is absolutely essential to the process of letting go. I love how McConnell brings the attention back to a place of gratitude, to self-love and to the belief that we all deserve a lover who looks at us as if we were magic.

I will print this out and hang it somewhere that I’ll see every day. I’ll let those words stay with me, each one precious and perfect and crying out for us to stop holding onto what is gone and start cherishing these beautiful lives that we have. I want to sit with a cup of tea in the morning and read these words slowly. I want to devour them on a quick lunch break over a cup of soup, or think of them while I’m running at the gym. I want to drink them in at night while I sip a glass of wine.

I want to feel them deeply and allow them to fill me up.

“Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell” {Excerpt}

by Marty McConnell

leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks

[…]

you make him call before
he visits. you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand…

*Follow the above link for the full poem.*

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Author: Crystal Jackson

Image: courtesy of editor

Editor: Toby Israel

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