Until I don’t have to avoid parts of the city

Until I can talk to my friend again

What if something didn’t happen?
Pick a poem I have written
And I’ll write a story where the events in it
Never happened
Where the feelings were never felt
Or maybe where I never met someone
Your choice

I can’t wait

All I want in life
Is for my friends to be successful
I want them to be able to come to me in 20 years
I want them happy, healthy, doing things on their own terms
And that one friend who doesn’t
I want them to be able to say to me one day
“I need help”
Because I don’t care about myself anymore
I only care that the people I love are doing perfect

I want a moment
Where I can say to someone
— anyone who deserves it
“Of all the people, in all the gin joints in all the world... and they walk into mine”
Because that’s setup for an amazing story

I want to destroy everything from our relationship
But I can’t
There’s nothing to destroy
The only thing I have are the rings sitting behind my painting
And a series of texts from when we went to the park together
I still remember
We went to **** Creek
Named for the taste of **** in the river
I still haven’t gone back
Because I know I’ll run into the two of you
And I can’t deal with that right now
It’s been two months
I’m trying to forget you
And as tears stream down my face I wish I had something
Anything
To destroy
But I can’t, because there’s nothing to destroy

What happens
When your go to venterater
Needs to be venterated?
Who do they talk to
When all they know
Is how to listen?
Who can talk?

I’m sad
Just sitting here alone on my bed
No rhyme or reason
It’s just my time
My time to mourn a total stranger
I don’t know who they are
Why they died
If they had anyone or anything
Hell, I don’t even know where they were
All I know is that they needed another person
To mourn

Why do people go to find love?
Do they really feel that it’s worth the breakup
To be feeling like **** for days — sometimes weeks
Just for a short time of happiness?

Ask me a question
Anything at all
I’ll answer it to the best of my ability
Go ahead
Don’t be shy

I’m a tangle of words
A mess of quotes
Lyrics
Jokes
Sarcasm
All written together into a script
Into the shape of a person
Whenever I speak
A piece of me comes off
Never to be seen again

I always misspell “Write”
And it’s all my teacher’s fault
English was taken with Ms. Wright
Writing 115
Writing 121
A total of 11 essays
20 worksheets
4 poems
All with her name at the top
And now I can’t write wright right
Right?

...

















But the silence says everything

We all wish we had the love
That Jim and Pam shared
That Westley and Buttercup shared
But as well all know
“This is true love, you think it happens every day?”

The lights come up
I wish there was really an intermission
A time where I could just sit
Relax
Reflect on what just happened
But life takes no breaks
Just as quickly as they appeared
The light gets snuffed
The curtain rises
And the rest remains to be seen

You have taken the first hit
Gotten your first high
Leaving you wanting more when life beats you
You want more, but can’t get any
You wish that when people asked you about their lives
You knew how to help
Life just seems to keep you down
Shattering you

Someone sees through our mask
And so we reveal everything to them
Only with them are you yourself
Only with them do you let them see underneath
But once they see, they leave
Until another takes their place
Rinse and repeat

We know who we are
We have a filter around family
Cutting out the curses and the ***** jokes
We have facades for our different groups
We put it on like a costume
Covering our feelings
Covering our emotions
Changing who we are
We only realize we had it on when we take it off
By then it’s too late
It’s become us

We have grown
We develop tastes and opinions
We have an imagination that can get us into trouble
We still don’t need a filter though
We don’t know why we would

We say what comes to mind
No filter for our thoughts
But we don’t need one
We haven’t yet discovered who we are
We discover our feet
Our hands
Our mouth
Our tongue
We discover how to walk
To talk
To ride a bike
We have no sense of urgency
The hardest pain may be when we fall
May be when someone leaves
May be when someone dies
But we always got back up
We always filled the gap the person left
We always recovered

We met under the pretense it would be you and me
I walk up, and there’s someone with you
“Atticus, this is Jamie”
I’m sorry, I didn’t know that you meant two
You and your girlfriend
I know you wanted me to meet her
But still you could have told me
That way I would know and it wouldn’t be as rude to go away
When she reached down
Giving you a ******* ******* under the table
But there I am
Awkwardly sitting
Watching everything but the two of you
As you try to connect us
Join another into our inside jokes
I wanted to get up and ask
“Is there a table for third wheels?”

You said “would you date me and why?”
Using the anonymous app, I said I would
You are beautiful, kind, and smart
We’ve helped each other
We’ve talked through our separate problems
we’ve become friends
I speak no lies
I said I wouldn’t as well
That I was not in a place to date
Emotionally, and physically
I still need time
And that is true as well
For I speak no lies

There’s a mystery behind these words
“Tomorrow, can we talk?”
Do they wish to tell me secrets
Or do they just want to tell me
Once again
“I got head”
Do they wish to tell me that they’re not happy
Something I’ve known for weeks now
Tomorrow I’ll find out
But the mystery of the words lives on

Can I go back
And do it all again?
Can I go back to the first day of school
And with the knowledge I have now,
Keep my old self
I used to be the “fun *******” of the group
Making jokes about things that aren’t funny
But get laughs because they’re dumb
Now I’m just an *******
I want that time back
Stop myself from making the mistakes I’ve made
It was a fun journey, sure
But I didn’t look at where the road ended up
God...
Jesus...
Buddha...
Kali...
Flying Spaghetti Monster...
Cronus...
Saturn...
The reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard...
One of you
Any of you
All of you
Please give me a chance to go back
And keep myself

Why am I the one my friends come to?
I have no experience with their problems
All I can say is that I’m there for them
Not always what they want to hear
Sometimes I can give them *******
Things viewed only in movies and tv
Yet they come back for more
Again and again
I get a text saying “can I ask you a question?”
I always respond the same
“Shoot”
As in “shoot for it”
Or maybe it means I was hoping you wouldn’t
Who knows

I know I said no more about him
But just this once,

I miss my back against his chest
His arms pulling me close
His head resting on mine,
Something I usually hate,
but never cared about with him,
I miss feeling his breaths
In... out... in... out...
Mine matching his
In... out... in... out...
Feeling his heartbeat
Ba-dum ba-dum
His hand resting on my chest, feeling mine
Bad-dum ba-dum
I miss the safety
The loss of time as we laid in his bed
Doing nothing more than laying there
Enjoying the warmth we shared
As he held me close
I never wanted it to end...

There’s too much heartbreak in people’s lives
Souring our moods
Changing us from ourselves
Love only made me vulnerable
Love only made me stupid
Love only made me open to pain
I am not ready to feel that pain
I am not ready to feel that stupid
I am not ready to feel that vulnerable
I am not ready to feel love

A **** fruit awaits
If only you can get past my thorns

We lay in a bed
Hopefully surrounded by those we love
By those who love us
We close our eyes
We breathe in
But not out
What comes next?
Darkness?
A skeletal hand guiding us?
A scale?
Perhaps a boat rowing us over the river Styx
Or maybe, it’s another life
Whatever it is
I’m ready to take that leap
But not quite yet

Love
Followed by regret

At midnight my mind switches
From me
To honesty
I drop the facade and reveal myself
I give out the truth
No sugarcoat
Just the bitter truth
And the truth is: I don’t care

I don’t have money
I don’t have power
I don’t have status
But what I have
I’ll give to you

They say that if you need to know about love
Ask a poet
They’re supposed to know all about it
But how can I know everything
About something
That I’ve only experienced once?

Like Atlas, the sky rests on my shoulders
I’m told that I don’t have to bear the weight
But who else is there to talk to her
We have other friends, yes
But none of them have helped take the weight
Instead adding on to it their own problems
I need to rest
But who will take my place?

This will be my last poem about him
But just in case he reads it,
I have a few final things to say
1) *******. You hurt many people, not just those you dated
2) *******. You tried to get us all to cut out Karol
3) *******. You pinned all the problems you caused on Karol
4) I know that I’ve been talking about you a lot. I know that was a weird thing for me to do (you know what I’m talking about.) but it was to get my final thoughts of you out
5) *******. You cheated on me the first weekend we were together. I was told at my grandmother’s house. These were the texts “we didn't see anything. but we're 86-94% sure that J and L were ******* each other's **** last night. and we're 98% sure that they were making out last night.”
6) *******. Why did you cut me out after the breakup? I know why, but I why couldn’t we just go back to being friends? We had been friends for a short time before, and we only did date for a “not that long” (according to your new girl)
7) *******. You dump me, then go after my friend? Then you expect me to just be happy for you? How delusional were you?
8) *******. You broke up with me over Snapchat. Not even a phone call, or hell even a real text. I could’ve moved on earlier, easier, if you had the ***** to talk to me in person, rather than hide behind a screen.
9) *******
You texted me today. You said that I need to chill out, that you’re moving away. Like I didn’t know that you were leaving. I’ll be happy when you leave. August can’t come soon enough. Soon to be a life without you.
So yeah. ******* *******

3 quick questions
1) did you love them?
2) did you spend all your time with them?
3) did the breakup hurt?

Calculating results...

Results:
You miss them.
You want to be with them.
You are in pain.
I’m right there with you

He told me to forget him
He’s moving away
So I have to move on
Kind of hard to forget
When all I want to do
Is remembered every kiss
Every cuddle
Every stroke of every hand on mine
But I have to forget
I know I do

I used to be fun
I wouldn’t complain about life
Just wonder when it would be my turn to be happy
I was fake happy
At least for a short time
I would laugh, cry, make jokes
I had friends
Then I met him
I changed
I didn’t think I had, but I did
And I changed for him

I never used to cut school
But I did it to be with him
We’d drive around
We’d go to the beach
We’d get food
We’d just go — be anywhere but school
I never used to steal
But last week I took expensive things from stores
I never used to smoke
But here I am, waiting for that next high
I changed for him
And I don’t like who I’ve become
I wish I could go back

I changed for him
No matter how much I didn’t think I did
But now
Instead of quotes
I speak original lines
Instead of jokes
I complain about him and her
Instead of being happy
I’m scared
I’m scared of who I am
And of what happened to me

Who am I?

I learned something in my relationship
I learned it’s the small things I love
The flirting
The hand holding
The laying on a bed together
Sure I miss the kisses
The support
The affection I was shown
But I don’t miss the big things
The things people define relationships on
I prefer to just be together

Who knew that the key to drawing
Stems from the same key to poetry

I was in that group chat yesterday
And I saw that you read her poem,
But do you still read mine?
Do they **** you off more?
Do they make you wish you were still with me
Do they make you think about how big a deal it was to me
That someone who I wanted to be with wanted to be with me?
Or does it make you think that I just wanted to know what it was like to be loved?

I don’t know why you chose me
But my guess is,
I was just another person
Another time marker
Another notch on the bedpost

I’m sorry for the lie I told you
That it was fine you started dating
But you have to realize how weird it is
How much it hurt
The proposal more than the aftermath
It was my ex best friend,
Someone who told me all the reasons not to be with you
Then said I told you so when you broke up with me,
Who took your hand next
I told you not to contact me
I even deleted your number
I even blocked you both online
But regardless
I find myself wondering why
What was I to you?

I find myself wondering
What are you thinking right now?

I need a success story
Just one
One person who came out to their parents
Or their aunt and uncle
Grandparents
Whoever
I just want one
It’ll help me feel better
Help me tell my parents
Tell my sister
Tell my family
So, I just want one success
Please help me gain confidence
Courage to tell them

Can anyone tell me
How to heal from a breakup faster
It’s been almost a month
I’ve tried ignoring it
I’ve tried talking about it
I’ve tried complaining
Fighting
Yelling
Nothing seems to work
Can anyone help?

I can no longer eat them
A bag of cookies
We ate them
The day of my first kiss

We were at school
Of all places for this story to start
In the college office
Whenever we were in there
Clara put on headphones to block us out
I now know that she did it
Because she couldn’t stand to watch
This, all of this, happen to me
But I digress

We sat in the college office
You, me, and Karol
You said you had to go
To clean your room
But we could come with
So we followed you home

I hadn’t been up there before
But it’s all burned in my brain
The door opened
Clothes thrown across the floor
Two beds, one for you the other for your brother
A shelf packed with stuff
A TV sitting on a stand
The dresser in the closet and another under a window

Karol and I sat on your bed as you cleaned the room
You brought up the cookies and apples
Set them on the dresser
You handed me two rings
Just too small for my fingers
I still have them, somewhere
They sit in a box alone
I wish I could put these memories with them

When the room was clean
Karol left to go sleep in the van
Leaving us alone
We moved the furniture
The beds rotated to a new wall
The dresser sat between them
The TV and shelf sat in an alcove
They fit so perfect you would think it was made for them
Then we laid on your bed
We put on American Dad on Hulu
The one where Stan had to put his kid’s best friend in the witness protection program
And we laid there for hours
Eating this bag of animal crackers that you brought up for us all to eat
You held me as my back fit in against your chest
I felt your cheek against mine
I turned to look at you
And we kissed like nothing else mattered
Then we sat there like nothing happened
But of course it had

I remember your tongue
Wrestling it’s way into my mouth
Our glasses clanking together as lip met lip
We shed them and we laid there together
eating the cookies
But now you’re gone
And I can’t eat them without thinking of you

I miss the feeling
Of being held close
Of holding a hand
Of lips upon mine
Of trying to send the sexiest picture
While keeping my clothes on
I miss the feeling of knowing
That someone out there loves me
The same way that I love them
I miss the feeling
Of having someone there for you
Of laying down with their arms wrapped around me
Of my legs twining around theirs as we laid in each other’s embrace
I miss the feeling
Of being with someone

Don’t get me wrong
I love writing poetry
Especially on here
Where poems flow
Where inspiration strikes me
From the work of others
But I need a break
I need to sit
I need to focus
I need to meditate
Give me a few days
Maybe weeks
Maybe all summer
Just to think
I want you all to know though
I love you all
Especially one of you
Reading this right now
I just need a break
So goodbye for now
Check back later
Sayonara
Adiós
пока пока
Bene noche
Goodbye