I never saw it coming
I only saw a happy ending, a fairytale that I was lucky enough to receive
But as we sat on my bed that night, the memories flooded to my head and heart
"I don't want to lead you on any longer" says the man who I had envisioned children with, had written vows for
How foolish of me, we were only 21
I think back to the day I tried to get you to go to Mexico, and you told me you couldn't commit to a trip with me so far away
Yet I had committed my whole entire life to you
My children were yours
I begin to realize how pathetic that is
That I would place my future in your hands
That I would place my future in yours
And that you would place your future far away from me, creating a life of your own where I did not exist
How strange it can be to be living in the same time zone, and yet experience different realities
Perhaps there is a parallel universe where I am exactly what you need
And I am the one who is leaving you behind
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 11:32 PM UTC
the other night, I read my love poems about you from somewhere in the distant past
I read the words of desperate love back to myself, but somehow they were unfamiliar
I do not remember writing them
I do not remember the person I used to be when I was with you
I got to a line, it read
“there’s no place i’d rather be, than here with…”
I couldn’t read the next word, a tear had blurred the ink
It was then that I realized I was sobbing
The pages flooded, overflowing with emotions I had forgotten were there
Soon, the whole notebook was ruined
A boat filling with water and I don’t have a bailer
My words about you blurred, ruined by a tsunami of tears that had no warning of showing up
My body did not warn me to take shelter or to tie down my belongings
I slip into my old heart, the room that I had been avoiding
The locked door has busted open from the storm
My body rocks, shakes, as if it is finally trying to rid me of you
I cling to this heart space, memories clouding my vision like fog on the highway
I’m only able to see what is right in front of me and right now that is you
But you look unfamiliar
Your voice is one I have never heard
My words repeat back to me over and over but they sound like a language I do not understand
I force myself to open my eyes, as if I’m trying to awaken myself from a nightmare
I get up and I light a candle
I set the flooded ship away into the ocean of forgotten
Mar 11, 2018
Mar 11, 2018 at 3:12 AM UTC
Part 1: The making of a big man
1. I feel small beside him. I’m a cloak of pride that he wears; when asked where he bought it, he claims to have made it himself. I’ve become so comfortable being worn by him that I no longer know how to wear myself when he isn’t around.
2. When asked a question, I know what the answer is; but I’ve been trained to look at him for confirmation in my response.
3. I’ve become quiet. When my mother asks why I have let him take my voice box out of my throat, I respond with a roar. The only time I speak up is to defend his honour.
4. I’ve become frail. I shrunk myself to make him feel big. A result of him ordering salads for me at restaurants; I can tell the waitress looks at me with disdain. I do not look back at her. She doesn’t know one thing about making a man happy.
5. I ignore the texts, the calls. The tinder notifications. When I do bring them up, I speak kindly. I take the blame for not ******* him off enough, of course he needs to seek it elsewhere. But please don’t do it again? (He does. I begin to choose my battles with this one).
6. I no longer fit into my jeans. He tells me it’s a good thing; they’re easier to take off that way.
7. I cry. I cry, and let him hold me, to make him feel like he is fixing me. I tell him that he’s holding me together. I tell him that it’s everything else, never him. He’s like a toddler squishing an ant: what are good intentions become fatal all too soon.
8. He cries. I hold him to feel like I am fixing him. I feel like I am holding him together. He tells me that it’s me, that he feels trapped. I’m like a leech on his arm: what is nourishing me is draining him.
9. He is so big. I am so small that he forgets that I am there. I have done my job. I leave in the middle of the night, he doesn’t notice that the bed is empty. My imprint was so little that he rolls over to my side, where I should have been, and snores.
10. I am small beside him. I am small without him. When he made me feel small, he made me small, when he made me feel weak, he made me weak, when he robbed me of my voice box, I lost my voice. He grew.
Part 2: The making of a strong woman
1. I feel whole beside you. I’m a cloak of pride that you wear; when asked where you bought it, you give credit to me.o
2. When asked a question, I speak clearly and honestly. I never look at you for confirmation.
3. I’ve become outspoken. My mother tells me that I must have found my voice box. I tell her you removed the lock.
4. I’ve become strong. I stand beside you in equal proportions. You make me mac and cheese for dinner and I lick the spoon.
5. I **** you off all the time. Because I want to.
6. I bought a whole new wardrobe. I don’t ask for your opinion. Your friends compliment me and you tell them you love what I wear.
7. I cry. I cry, and you cry, and you hold me. You are holding me together, you are gluing me back together with your tears. You are like the binding of a book: holding together a masterpiece, while still allowing the book to open.
8. You cry. I hold you, and we sail off into the night. Your tears are the ocean, my arms are the steering wheel.
9. You are so wonderful. Your presence is all-encompassing, and I feel all encompassed in love. When I leave the bed to go *** you ask me where I’m going. The only time you roll to my side of the bed is to wrap me in your arms.
10. I’ve grown, and so have you. You’ve put me on a cloud, and I’ve put you on a throne. Your words have blossomed flowers in my lungs. I’m golden. I am loved. I am love.
Aug 18, 2017
Aug 18, 2017 at 2:49 AM UTC
1. that song you wrote is beautiful
it hurt a bit to listen to, but it's beautiful
2. I wish it could have worked out for us - maybe in a different lifetime
3. I hope you find someone as amazing as you are
you deserve someone who understands you
4. I'll always love you
I am only realizing that now
but even while I'm in love with someone else
you have taken a piece of me
5. move
get away from here as fast as you can
go be successful
6. you have the most amazing hands
let them do the work
7. your words have always been better than mine
please use them for good and not evil
I'm trying to do the same thing
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 3:38 AM UTC
the rest of our lives is a very long time
are you sure you want to be with me all that time?
are you sure that you want to kiss only my ******* for the rest of your life?
I have a hard time believing that you will never kiss another person again
not because I don't trust you, but because I can't imagine someone wanting only me for the rest of their life
only me
it's a strange concept to me, I can't seem to grasp it
that I am enough for you
that I am enough of a person, that I give you enough love, enough satisfaction
enough *******
because you are more than enough for me
I find it unfair that I only get one lifetime with you
I would find you in any lifetime
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 3:17 AM UTC
1. i have never woken up at 4:45 a.m. just to drive someone across town
2. but i would drive across town at any hour of the day to see you
3. your smile is the most wonderful thing in the world
4. seriously, you smile like the city lights
5. you are my city - i could draw a map of you (my location would be at the heart)
6. i thought i had loved before i met you. i now know i haven't. i now know what people mean when they refer to their significant other as their "better half"
7. you make all of the numbers good ones
8. i have never been looked at with such eyes as yours. i feel wanted. it's nice.
9. don't ever leave me
if you have do, please dig me a grave
10. i don't want to live without you
it's pathetic, i know
but i would be a dead girl walking if you ever stopped looking at me the way you do
11. thank you
12. i'm bad with words, speaking them, at least
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 3:15 AM UTC
i have not tried to crash my car in nearly three weeks,
so i guess you could say i'm doing better.
my mind sometimes refuses to resist
the need for liquor that my body screams.
my lips are constantly searching for yours;
with every bottle i press against them,
i can never seem to find yours.
all of my jeans are too big now,
my ribs are prominent and my collarbones
sticking out like they are misplaced on my body.
i guess a diet of popcorn and stale cigarettes will
do that to you.
i find myself constantly tempting fate in the worst ways possible,
in a desperate yearning
to find you again.
i have gone absolutely mad from missing you.
i write poem after poem,
they are all unfinished.
hours later, i will read my words,
repelled at how they fail to do what i want them to.
i still sleep on the left side of the bed,
refusing to touch your side in fear that i will wake you up.
i swear sometimes i will wake up to the sound of you in the shower,
and then realize it's simply
the rain battering at my window,
mocking me.
i remember asking my mother
three weeks after the accident:
"will i ever laugh again?"
"of course you will sweetie,
when something is really, really funny"
that was the first and only time my mother ever lied to me,
and i know she didn't mean to
because she genuinely thought it to be true.
two years, three months and fifteen days have passed.
some things are really, really funny.
i do not laugh.
i only feel guilty that you are not there to laugh
with me.
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 2:15 AM UTC
i sat down on the bench at the bus stop on 24th and 3rd, next to a girl with a black long sleeve tshirt on in 93 degree sticky august weather. she looked about 17 years old, not much younger than i. i noticed her small, elegant fingers holding onto a black leather sketchbook and i found myself yearning to know what was inside of it.
i looked at her and smiled, commented on the weather;
"i would be sweating buckets if i were wearing that shirt."
she looked at me with such repugnance, it was as if i had told her that i killed her puppy and ate it for breakfast.
i looked away into the distance and watched the hustle and bustle of new york city on a tuesday. i held my gaze on a window of a large office building, 17 stories up and 4 across from the left. i imagined the cubicles; small, cramped and disgustingly humid, and the people inside of them; lonely, fed up and hungry.
"i would love to not be wearing this shirt. unfortunately my skin isn't pure and unmarked like yours."
the girl stood up, and looked at me with such sadness in her eyes that i could not unsee them. she walked down 24th towards the subway. she left her leather sketchbook sitting beside me, an unopened treasure chest full of unknown secrets and dreams.
i watched the girl walk with her arms crossed, bag thrown over one shoulder down the street, expecting her to turn around realizing what she had left behind - but she didn't. she kept walking and walking and walking until i could not longer see anything more than a small black dot.
i was brought back when i heard the large bus screech and halt to a stop, the black woman driving stare at me as if she had been waiting three and a half years for me to get on the bus. i picked up the black sketchbook and climbed the steps, popping $2.75 into the fare box.
i sat down in an empty middle seat, and leaned my head against the hot window. i felt the sun beam down on my face through the plexi-glass as i looked down at the black leather sketchbook still in my hands. i found myself holding it as if it were a very important document given to me by a secret agent to bring to the CIA.
i made it home to my stuffy one bedroom apartment with the sketchbook still unopened, still in careful hands. i set it down on my kitchen counter beside my yellow sticky note to pick up eggs, ketchup and lemon juice. which i forgot. again. i stared at the beautiful black leather of the sketchbook for a good ten minutes before finally flipping the cover to reveal two words, written with pencil in the most beautiful calligraphy i have ever seen;
"tragically beautiful"
i was so taken aback by the juxtaposition of these two simple words that i wished i had never opened the book at all, but somehow i felt myself flipping page after page looking at sketches drawn by an amazing talent whom i don't even know the name of.
i sat down at my desk after analyzing each and every sketch and put a fresh piece of paper into my typewriter. i entitled it
"tragically beautiful.
scars do not make an individual beautiful. scars simply add to the tragedy of the beauty shown by that individual. tragedy and beauty are two things that can not seem to be more opposed to each other, but somehow they can not exist without one another."
i wanted so desperately to know how to reach this girl, and tell her to wear her smallest tank top. i wanted her to know that her scars did not have to be covered up by unforgiving cotton. i wanted her to realize that her tragedies don't define her beauty.
her sketchbook is still beside my typewriter, bringing me back to that day on the bench.
if only she knew how impure and marked up my skin really is, that would truly be,
tragically beautiful.
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 3:25 AM UTC
immensity scares me.
some nights I will dream of being lost in the ocean, seeing nothing but immense bodies of water for hundreds of thousands of miles.
I will wake up in one swift breath to an empty bed and remember that you aren't there.
the immensity of that statement is enough to make me lean over the porcelain bowl and rid myself of missing you.
you make me write half-finished poems.
you fill my head with juxtaposition.
you feel like a black hole that I keep reaching into to find something that I lost long ago.
I seem to keep trying to fit the whole ocean into one dusty old wine bottle, although I know it is physically impossible.
I know one day the glass will shatter.
a million shards, cutting flesh and spilling feelings.
I do not want you.
I want him.
I want everything he has and I want him so immensely that his immensity doesn't scare me.
he doesn't scare me like you do.
he comforts me in every way possible.
and I love him.
not you;
never you.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 1:00 AM UTC
all I seem to write about is you
you, with your big smile
big attitude
big personality
big heart
and all I can do is love you
I never want this to end
I'm so in love with you that my heart races with every kiss you lay on my lips
my neck
my pulse quickens
with your voice
your scent
your breath
I love you.
you feel like he did.
but a thousand times better.
I love you.
Oct 21, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 at 3:27 AM UTC