boomerang mon amour

Life has afforded me multiple proofs of the girlTheorem that boys are, indeed, boomerangs. It may take them weeks, hours, years... but one way or another, come hell or high water - these days though, it's usually via facebook - they come winging back. So, for example, Pierre.

FADE IN New York 2002. He came up to me after one of my erotica readings on the Lower East Side: his eyes pinging with lust, his boy brain chugging I wonder is she as kinky as the story she just read out loud, she must, must, must be, I mustmustmust find out first hand so help me god, repeat.

Pierre is handsome, Pierre is talented... Pierre is way, way horny. Stef digs Pierre's music, Stef is missing this other guy... Stef takes Pierre home.

It turns out everything about him is just so delightful, fruity and enticing - mouth skin smell hands voice taste shape size weight attitude - Stef finds herself wishing she weren't so upset over this other guy so she could be free to appreciate just how much she's liking Pierre.

But it's a moot point anyway, because it turns out Pierre has a brand-new girlfriend. "She's very pure," he tells Stef proudly. Pierre and Stef become lovers. Stef forgets about missing that other guy; Pierre consolidates his relationship with his pure, trusting, monogamous girlfriend.

One night at a party he tells her, "I could never be with you because we're so alike it's scary," and Stef thinks that's so unfair. I'm nothing like you, she wants to tell him but doesn't. I wouldn't cheat on you.

She wrote a little poem about her various dishonest lovers at the time, it started off with: The arrogance of Pierre/And a lust so sincere/Make me take him on a dare.

Stef wishes she didn't have this much chemistry with a player; at the same time she can't refuse him, and is sorry when at last he decides to stop fooling around and start being faithful to his girlfriend.

One day months later she runs into him in a restaurant. She's with her new lover and is happy, and all she feels upon seeing him again is There goes someone I used to like... no hard feelings... just glad it's over. And that's a wrap on Pierre.

CUT TO facebook 2010: Pierre resurfaces all of a sudden aerodynamically from the space/time continuum - as boomerangs are wont to do - in the guise of the following message:

"Just found your blog, it is really beautifully written and inspired. I was particularly blown away by canned heat at woodstock. Any hipster band in Williamsburg right now would give their left thumbs to be one 100th as cool as that. I wrote a song about you back then and I think you would like it...."

Well the song is pretty cool, and it turns out I still like Pierre. He's still an artist just like me, he raised money for Haiti just like me, and he plays Joe's Pub just like I used to do.

I do love those boomerangs when they come back... don't you? Anyway, here are his lyrics to my song:

LEPIDOPTERA

Butterfly, cracked and classic
Spraying bullets from her feelers
Terrifying and Jurassic
Decay delicious on her features
Vibration, communication
In the back seat of a chariot
Opens up the wing of heaven
Tied in dirty velvet lariat
Greenhouse ballroom, tepid opera
Molten snow in sacred urn
Was the flame of Lepidoptera
Which perpetually does burn
Outhouse of a pervert’s tavern
Takes the antlers in her mouth
While the larvae untransformed
Shout her name and dance about
Eastern playhouse, tepid opera
Molten snow from sacred urn
Was the flame of Lepidoptera
And forever will I yearn