Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
DElizabeth Oct 2023
"what's a poem, after all, if not a safe space for a difficult truth?"

i have a tendency of having my heart broken when the leaves start to change colors.

i drive past your old apartment every time i drive home from school. it was sweet until it was bittersweet but now it's just bitter.

our sweet summer feels like a past life. it seems so long ago,
all the moments that stay but they all eventually turn gray.

gray was color of the sky the day that you said you had to leave

leaves were the blanket that covered the ground the night you last touched my hand.

and i'm so tired of being what i am when every good thing that comes my way turns into something i taint.

you said there was nothing that i could do to ever scare you away, then tell me, why one little thing had you run the other way?...

in my dreams you're stealing glimpses & asking me if i want to start all over again.

in my dreams we made it.
in my dreams you feel the same.

I'M not wHERE i want to be

you look for someone to love you but i've been standing right here all along

i thought i gave you my best, i thought my heart would finally rest...

i told you all of my secrets, my habits & fears... you said you'd never grow bored of knowing me...

the shade always comes at the worst time, we were okay, we were happy, we were doing just fine...

i remember that first glimpse of hope when we both said we'd rather elope, i ran home that day & gushed about you to my dad,
i accepted it now, but it still makes me sad.

i thought we'd have more time
i thought we'd have more time

but we were always meant
to say goodbye, weren't we?...

right from the start we were closer than most, but we never felt the need to boast.

"if i told you about the darkness inside of me would you still look at me like i'm the sun?"

i used to love to go places alone but with you it was always more fun.

but just like sand, the tighter i tried to hold onto you, the quicker
you slipped through my fingers...

you were my greatest teacher & easiest lesson: i cannot make someone love me by loving them harder.

you didn't think you could love me if you couldn't love you
it's valid
it's valid...

"boundaries are the distance at which i can love you & me all at the same time"

if this is what it takes, then darling, i don't mind the cold.

the love inside of me is somehow all yours, & i hate when i feel like this.

i thought you growing tired of me was my biggest fear, but i can feel you forgetting to remember me & i've never felt more afraid...

"i think we want different things" he said, but i couldn't find the words as the tears rolled down my warm cheeks to tell him i disagree...

everything before you feels like a blur, still necessary but not as important as where we had plans on going...

strawberries & sunsets on the beach was our everyday until every last drop of wine was all death & decay...

I DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER
YOU THIS WAY
I DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER
US THIS WAY...


but it's so hard when you loved me then, then why can't you again?
you say you didn't get there but your actions speak otherwise...

now the taste of apple cider reminds me of you, the days when i kissed you through the leaves & you never wanted me to leave.

our bedroom windows face the sunrise, even on my darkest day
you showed up with sunflowers, you were always the most unexpected surprise.

the road was long but i never minded, as long as you were in the car with me, the path was winded but we knew we couldn't be blinded...

i remember thinking you were mine, but i didn't get enough gas for this detour...

for the first time i can find my way back home, it's been folklore since july & even though the sun is asleep, i know it'll soon feel like spring.

fast forward to the tail end of October.
the leaves are falling like we were in august
as i walk the same trail we did that day.

"that's okay i understand!!!!"
except it made me sick to my stomach.

i walked these autumn town streets holding the hand of your ghost mid-october.

with you, i was a bit more me.

i hear you're still around. but nowhere near me. our one-sided-too-soon love had gone cold while your soul intertwines with someone else's.

i'm jealous of the chair that kisses your back while you sit in it. it's stable & reliable embrace has the grace of holding you more than i ever will.

the candlelight wanted us to be seen by each other. only death by our own hands...only by one of our pair of young lungs would it be extinguished. it wasn't me who blew it out.

i was always told, "one day you'll meet someone & you'l see why it never worked with anyone else." and, "you'll meet someone who will make you feel how it should have felt all along."

that was you, that was you, but now you're gone, now you're gone

"i'm ashamed of what i've done for love, but i do not regret any of it."

"i realize that loving too much can also make you gasp for air, it makes you want to scream in the wee early morning hours, it makes you weep along with raindrops falling soundly on your window. i never thought that loving you too much can also break my heart. and yet, i still do."

i swore to myself that i'm here to be a plot twist, a main character in someone's story, not a non-playable character in a plot that's already been written.

i promised myself that i'm here to live a life of vivacious chaos, not cautious perfection...forgiveness... foriveness.

"if i don't hesitate to be my authentic & absolute goofiest self around you, you're really special to me. if you're the first person i share news or stories with, you're really special to me. if i call you without a reason just to talk to you or hear your voice, if i just pick up the phone, you're really special to me. if i call you by a nickname more than your actual name, you're really special to me. & if i share my most embarrassing moment with you without fear of rejection or judgment...you're really special to me."

you were the one that didn't think i was too much but never wanted me to be less...you saw my scars & never tried to fix them.

just because i am silent, does not mean i don't think about it. just because i stopped speaking about it, does not mean it has stopped haunting me.

& WHAT KIND OF HOPE AM I SUPPOSED TO HAVE? . . .

why do i always have to be the one to clean up what they left behind?

time with you is time well spent. "doing nothing's never nothing when it's something with you."

i wish i could be able to say that i never told you i was falling for you a little bit...but i did because it felt necessary. not because i thought it would make you stay.

it's november now & where are you? the dinner is getting cold like the cement beneath my feet...i cooked your favorite food, but little did i know it would be our last meal. peppers & peach wine

["wHy can't you see me? WhY can't i stop needed you to see me . ."]

& was it always going to come to this? the both of us wanting what the other cannot give?...

i'm not superstitious but i engage in superstitious behaviors. i am no conspiracy theorist but my favorite one is that you regret what you did to my heart.

do you ever think of me when you drive by the cell towers? when i was little i always thought i lived in paris because they looked like the eiffel tower, you thought that was cute.

dreams...if "dreams" is what we could call them...they're more like replayed reality.

i thought we'd have more time. i thought we'd have more time. i thought we'd have more time. i thought we'd have more time. maybe not forever but, i thought we'd have more time.
DElizabeth Oct 2023
you still make me nervous
you still make me laugh,
you still make me smile uncontrollably
even hours after you've left

if the memories are all in gold
then why do i write about them in gray?
i think about how we lost our hold,
i think about it every day...
DElizabeth Oct 2023
you used to smile to your eyes
i used to always wonder why
you frowned the day you bought me peaches

i thought we'd have a lot more time
i thought you were forever mine
i wish we could have seen those beaches

but i know you're lost
you're scared your gain will be less than the cost,
but i'll still be here until the first frost...

nose deep in scars
you left behind
like cars in an airport parking lot

while i stare at stars
you feel so far
in your little haunted house

tucked away
we fade to gray
but i know
you're happy & safe

tucked away
among the trees
the grass
& an autumn breeze . . .

i always imagined your new home
painted beige, big porch to hug the bones,
little pond & big brown stepping stones

perhaps a swing
she'll get to grow up in
fastened beneath a great oak tree,
grass stains & scrapes on her knee

among the fields
the bugs, wild flowers
bonfires & talks for hours

but i know you're gone
you're there, you're new beyond compare
to say "hello" would i ever dare?...

nose deep in scars
you left behind
like cars in an airport parking lot

while i stare at stars
you feel so far
in your little haunted house

tucked away
we fade to gray
but i know
you're happy & safe

tucked away
among the trees
the grass
& an autumn breeze . . .

i move in, settle in the attic
among the dust, the fuzz
& faded photographs

how else would i know
you spritz your cologne
12 times before leaving
the house?

& that your favorite meal
is dinner? or that you wish
your room was bigger?

but i know you'll fall,
i'll roam these halls
i'll haunt your walls
& wish that you would call...

through the woods
through the weeds,
planting clues
while you're planting seeds

i know you're busy
but i'm getting dizzy
from being your ghost
'thought i'd get to love you
the most...

nose deep in scars
you left behind
like cars in an airport parking lot

while i stare at stars
you feel so far
in your little haunted house

tucked away
we fade to gray
but i know
you're happy & safe

tucked away
among the trees
the grass
& an autumn breeze . . .

friendliness
loneliness
i'll be the ghost
in your haunted house

friendliness
loneliness
i'll be the ghost
in your haunted house

you still make me laugh
as you tell jokes at the dinner table
& you still make me sad
when you cry in the dark,
i'd wipe your tears f'i was able

i watch you go, watch you return
just to leave again

i watch you grow, watch you stumble
& hold her hand
when the thunder rumbles

you fog & fumble
it's jogged & jumbled
i watch as your brand-new
castle crumble

nose deep in scars
you left behind
like cars in an airport parking lot

while i stare at stars
you feel so far
in your little haunted house

tucked away
we fade to gray
but i know
you're happy & safe

tucked away
among the trees
the grass
& an autumn breeze . . .

friendliness
loneliness
i'll be the ghost
in your haunted house

friendliness
loneliness
i'm still the ghost
in your haunted house...
DElizabeth Oct 2023
they asked me how my love life is

to which i replied:

currently burning.

i'm watching it like a bonfire in the middle of a clearing on the outskirts of the woods...

at the edge of town in the middle of nowhere, where you & the ghost of us are anywhere & everywhere i look...

wearing a tearstained gown with messy smoke-saturated hair as the wind sweeps it across my face, grazing my collarbone, around my neck & over my shoulders...

with empty eyes & a heart made of glass, shattered & aching...my spirit of love, in shambles.

knowing that there isn't a **** thing i can do or say to resurrect what we once shared . . .
DElizabeth Oct 2023
my melatonin kicked in strong & the last thing i remember seeing through the sleepy haze was a bright & golden 11:11 staring boldly back at me, demanding to be wished upon...
i made a wish but i can't remember what it was.

i crafted my heart into carefully selected diction for you, you said it meant more than i'd ever know to you...if that was true then why did you let me go?...

were you just an undercover bad boy, a face behind a masquerade mask? were you just sweet because you knew i always have a sweet tooth, because you knew you should be? were you remarkably thoughtful because you knew i was too, so i could think we were cut from the same cloth?...

i wake up every morning & wonder if you still think of us & how it all took a turn so soon. do you still think about the fun we had? do you still remember how we could never say goodbye before midnight with messy hair & flushed cheeks? do you still think about the stranger smiles & glances shared between two, the way the peach wine made me dizzy or the way you held my hand against your stick shift...

i gave you my everything because i knew you appreciated it...i gave you my all because i knew you loved it...because i knew you wanted to see it, know it, have it, want it, need it, keep it...

but were you just an undercover bad boy, just another face in the sea of strangers? were you just another narcissistic sociopath with an ulterior motive posing as a regular? were you just another walking heartbreaker, was i just another pawn in your game? was it all just a game?...

i remember thinking you were mine forever, and i can't say that you loved me because you never got there, but tell me darling why, why did it feel like you did?...

i was honest, i was true...i was falling without a clue...i was brave, i was bold...i was new, and you knew...i was me, we felt free...we were real, we were deep...we were vulnerable, we were everything they all wish they had...

please tell me darling that you were never just an undercover bad boy...tell me you were everything you showed yourself to be...that you were exactly who you told me you were, & that your feelings were true...tell me you meant every word, every dance, every song, every smile, every kiss, every touch, every glance...
DElizabeth Oct 2023
i don't owe
my love
to anyone
who threw
it away
& previously
repeatedly
rejected it
over & over
and
over & over

again . . .
DElizabeth Oct 2023
i own no one
an apology
for my feelings.

i don't own anyone
an explanation
for why i feel
the way i do,
i just do.

i am not in a place of
overdraft
because i am affected
by the way they make me feel
small...invalidated...
unexperienced...mistaken...
confused­...doubtful.


i am not in debt
to anyone
by not proving to them
that i was happy...
that i was in love...
that i was myself.

i own no one
my energy
in trying to convince
them that what we were
was real...
when they've already decided
we weren't enough to have
ever really been valid...
to have ever truly existed . . .
Next page