"Because You Fall Too Fast Too Hard" by Dorothy Chan

Dorothy Chan is the author of Chinese Girl Strikes Back (Spork Press, forthcoming), Revenge of the Asian Woman (Diode Editions, 2019), Attack of the Fifty-Foot Centerfold (Spork Press, 2018), and the chapbook Chinatown Sonnets (New Delta Review, 2017). She was a 2020 finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry for Revenge of the Asian Woman, a 2019 recipient of the Philip Freund Prize in Creative Writing from Cornell University, and a 2014 finalist for the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship. Her work has appeared in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. Chan is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Poetry Editor of Hobart. Visit her website at dorothypoetry.com

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Because You Fall Too Fast Too Hard


Why don’t we split the steak for two
medium rare and the $21 Caesar salad,
is what I always want to say on dates,
because I always come hungry, but
scratch that, I don’t share food with men
I’ve just met, and boy, you’re the most
adorable thing here, but I’m thinking about
how Marlene Dietrich once said that her
favorite food was champagne and hot dogs,
and throw in some cheddar mac and cheese
and you’re golden, and I could really bite
down on a wiener just about now, extra
relish, yellow mustard, dreaming about
the ways you’ll kiss me later, our tongues
touching, me licking your lips in a total
Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman move,
and what we’ve got going on is attractive-
successful people infatuation, like if I was
on the McDonald’s menu, I’d be a McLovin’
with double the cheese and fries, and oh
yeah, I’m extra campy, the one non-kids
menu item that comes with the Hello Kitty
toy, and did you know that in the early days
of the millennium, couples in Hong Kong
would go on dates at McDonald’s, like
it’s the hippest thing ever, and I remember
adding chili sauce to my fries and licking
that soft serve of green apple and vanilla
in Singapore, and yes, yes all of the above
is delicious, like sharing this bottle of bourbon
with you, and I’m the type of woman
who knocks over the banana stand
at the grocery store, the smell of whiskey
on my lips, and don’t you just love the rise
and the fall of our mouths meeting, the tingle
you can’t resist, but I don’t want to fall in
love that easily, and I hate it when men fall in
love with me too easily, and let’s just enjoy
the loss of control now, the tingle of bourbon,
the kiss me harder moans, the oh really, boy,
kiss me harder, kiss me under the covers.