Noelle Matthews

Noelle Matthews Jul 2022

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nothing feels the same as it did when we were young and I know growing up is supposed to feel good but sometimes it’s just really ******* bittersweet

Noelle Matthews Jul 2022

summer love

a bead of sweat drips down
the bow of my lip,
the hot air slowly suffocating us.
she exhales, smoke billowing in rings
from her mouth out the open window.
her head weighs on my chest, her feet
kicked up on the windowsill.
she looks up at me, green eyes searching
for something she doesn’t seem to find.
i know that this, us, is going to dissolve
someday, but dear god please
give me more time.

Noelle Matthews Apr 2022

move on, you're getting older

nasturtium climbs up the side of my childhood home
in the same spot I planted it when i was sixteen

the rest of the garden is gone

i feel like an outsider driving past the place I
lost my first tooth in, and nobody i know lives there anymore

i wonder if the new family knows how many times we ended up laughing so hard we cried, and i wonder if the
heights marked on our doorframe were painted over
the second they got in

when we moved out, the pictures hanging on my wall were stuffed into boxes that i still haven’t unpacked as an adult, and the echo of my completely empty bedroom was the hollowest sound i’d ever heard

growing up is dull, growing up is forgetting, growing up is moving on from everything that made you exactly what you are today, then learning to live with the change

Noelle Matthews Jan 2022

forgetting shouldn't be this easy

the peach stand at the end of my road
sweet, sticky peach juice dripping down my chin
the biggest smile you've ever seen filling my face

these are summer nights for us
sunlight until nine pm
streetlights softly clicking on as we walk home,
barefoot and happy
we were young then

what happened to this feeling? those nights?
why is growing up synonymous with forgetting?
i don't remember my best friends from school anymore
or how the smell of my mom's perfume made me feel safe.
i can't recall the way summer nights felt,
and my birthday doesn't feel special.

i don't want to forget the only things that kept me alive,
the only things that filled me with joy when joy seemed to run short.
please, i can't forget yet

Noelle Matthews Oct 2021

in love or not, we broke just the same

hey lover

i was happy with you, i know it
our matching rings left green circles
but meant devotion all the same

maybe the story of us wasn't ever going to last,
maybe this was always doomed,
maybe hurt was the only natural ending

this isn't goodbye, because your obsidian eyes
show up in my mind with the turn of your lips,
the freckles on the column of your throat, the
memory of your hand on the small of my back

this isn't goodbye, because i know i will see you again.
every time my eyelids meet, i wait for peace to flood through
with our memories and the way we loved despite it all,
the sunlight you brought into my dreary days

they will craft poetry from our pain
create something beautiful out of the destruction.
our memories, cemented in the minds of those like us
those who may be just as ill-fated
those who beg the universe for one more second.

hey lover, i was happy with you. i know it.

Noelle Matthews Apr 2021

false notions

we know not what love truly is
we see love on valentines cards
rom-coms and romance novels
but that is not all that true love is,
because what happens
to the lovers after the last page?
after the credits roll? when the card is shut?
love is messy. love is hard, love struggles.
what we do know about love is this:
love is beauty, love is determination.
love is a roller coaster of good and bad
and we are both the operators
and along for the ride
all at once.

Noelle Matthews Apr 2021

a forbidden romance

i am in love with the wind
she does not know my name
i feel her drifting past me on warm spring mornings
cooling the air until i can breathe easier
i roll my windows down and feel her in my hair
as if i had grown wings and learned to fly
does the wind have a name? she is astounding and radiant
sometimes i imagine her watching me over my shoulder. i smile
the wind will live forever, though i will not. will she miss me?
i can't be the only poor girl who has fallen, can i? will she notice?
i push those thoughts aside, deciding to speak up for the being i want
she will know my name if it's the last thing life allows me
maybe we aren't meant to be, maybe we are
all i know is that i am in love with the wind

i am in love with a girl
she thinks i do not know her name; i know more than she can imagine
i follow her where she walks in spring, observing
her breath is forced, but i can ease her struggle
many girls dream of flying above the tallest skyscraper
but her, oh, when she dreams it i am up at once, whipping by her
i have no name, but the things she calls me bring color to our faces
i keep watch, protecting her from the world and the world from her
she is melancholic often now. i think i know the future she pictures
she thinks i will not notice her absence,
that i have not grown to need her in our time together
she has begun speaking to me, and my heart swells with her devotion
if only i could respond in ways she understood,
tell her i know her better than i know parts of myself
we are meant to be, i know it. even if we are never together i will
know all that we could've been as one
all i know for sure is that i am in love with a girl