Performer: Alice Dang

Like Like

by Theresa Davis

 

When my girl touches me the way my girl touches me,

I like it.

I tell her:

“Baby,

I like that and I like like more please.”

“Like like? What’s that?”

Her smile in a question

So I untangle myself from herself

And I explained to her as it was explained to me by my teenage son,

Which means this is a fact.

 

There are two kinds of like,

There is like and there is like like.

Like is: “I like you”

Like like is: “Yeah, I like you.”

My son is explaining the phenomenon of like like to me

Because he like likes this girl at school.

He tells me how pretty she is,

How they sat together at lunch and had a conversation.

“She is so smart, Mom.

She’s so nice. I like like her”

My heart swells in crashes, partly because

He is more like me than I imagined.

Mostly because he is more like me than he knows

Because I too, am a sucker for a pretty smart nice girl who eats food and has conversation

But I also sweep up the shards of my heart every time a girl breaks it.

My son will have his heart broken a lot.

He’s just like his mother

And I want to warn him, I want to explain what the hopeless and hopeless romantic really means

But I really don’t believe it.

I mean I refuse to believe that romance, in love or like like is hopeless.

But I love the way his face breaks open when he talks about sharing ideas with this girl that he like likes

I mean he wants to give her art, and I don’t care if he uses all of my supplies.

He wants to give her art and he plus art is his heart.

And she will break it and when it happens,

We will color on the couch, commiserate eat comfort food.

I will have ice cream, he will eat those Cheetos that bear no resemblance to any color on a wheel.

But we will hold each other up the way he held me up when heartbreak just looks like

“Why is my mom so sad?”

When he comes home from school, tells me that this girl refused his gift.

He will call himself stupid, he will call his hard work, his consideration, his art junk.

He will ask me if there was some way he could have known that she didn’t like like him the way he like liked her.

So I will ask if I can have his heart, his art, remind him that I like like him the way he is just fine.

But I wonder will this jade him and before I get too lost in that thought,

He tells me about the girl who’s this next woman science.

“She’s so pretty, Mom

I like her, not like like. Just like.”

And I think, “Oh my boy, you’re gonna like like her soon.”

You are so full of hope.

 

So after my story, my girl tells me that she like likes me

I know she’s gonna break my heart

But I’m so full of hope.

I’m just like my son, so I smile back at her.

I tell her,

“Baby, I like like you too and I’d like like more, please.”