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  Sep 2023 Rafael Melendez
unwritten
i don't get so sad anymore, you know.
and sometimes i wish i could go back and do things better,
do things right,
but something in me knows it was supposed to end when it did.

you've changed, anyway.

i don't want to say that you're not the person i once knew,
because i'm sure that deep down, somewhere in there, you are,
but i'm a tired person,
and i lack the energy required
to dig down so deep through skin and bone
trying to find the worn out shards of a memory;
the last pieces of the first person to make me feel so terribly alive.

//

i hope you're happy.
i have always hoped that you would be happy.

but i don't get so sad anymore,
and i don't want to linger on the past.

(still i write poems about you, simply for the sake of writing).

//

every now and again,
i'll think about you,
you and everything and everyone else who shaped me.

and it's hard to believe it's been two years.

and it's hard to believe that i have grown,
but i have,
and the truth is that i don't need you anymore.

//

i don't get so sad anymore, you know.
things have gotten better.
you're gone and you don't care and i sometimes wonder if you ever did, but i'm telling you anyway that things have gotten better because i want to prove to myself that it was right to let you go,
that i needed to let you go to finally be free.

you made me feel alive in a way that tugged at my heart with a surprising aggression,
but i deserve better than that.

(a.m.)
for a.r., two years later.
  Sep 2023 Rafael Melendez
unwritten
i hold on to pieces of people
long after they've let go of all of me.

i never know when enough is enough,
never know when optimistic hope turns into desperate denial.
or perhaps a better way to put it
is that i never want to know.

i could've let you go earlier,
at a point when it wouldn't have caused me as much pain,
when i wouldn't have spent countless nights up late thinking about you.
i could've let you go when you still meant nothing to me.
after all,
that seemed to work for you.

but no.
i clung on, like i always do.
digging my nails in and planting my feet into the ground,
thinking that i was holding onto you.
i wasn't, though.
i can see now that the only thing i ever had a grip on was my own foolishness,
my own desire to create something from nothing.
not you.
i never had you.

but i'll tell myself that at some point,
i did.
because after all the lies you told me, what's one more lie i tell to myself?

(a.m.)
comments would be appreciated. (:
  Sep 2023 Rafael Melendez
unwritten
some people say
that to be alive
is to hear yourself breathing,
feel your heart beating incessantly,
taking blood, vessel by vessel, from each vein.

sometimes
i lie awake at night
and i hear myself breathing.
i hear myself breathing and i feel my heart beating,
taking blood, vessel by vessel, from each vein.

i look up at the moon and its pale white face,
in stark contrast with the blackened cloak of night.
i cannot hear its soft, subtle breath.
i cannot hear its heartbeat.

but still, it shines —
shines with a greatness i could never reach,
never conquer.
it shines because it wants to be,
wants to exist.

some might say that the moon could never want.
but i know that brightness.
it does not come unless first there is a longing.

i never hear the moon breathing,
but i see it shine.
and somehow, in that shine,
it is more alive than i will ever be.

(a.m.)
written 10.23.15
going to continue this series periodically. please leave thoughts & comments if you can. love you all. **
  Sep 2023 Rafael Melendez
unwritten
for a moment i couldn’t remember your last name.
for a moment it started with a different letter,
was spoken in a different tongue.
for a moment i had forgotten it — that is, if i ever knew it at all.

you used to be so clear to me.
you were, at a time, tangible —
so much more than a memory.
i loved you then and i could say that i love you now but
you cannot love a memory.
not in the same way, no.
you cannot talk to a memory,
nor laugh with a memory,
nor live with a memory.

and so i keep you
frozen in time,
a fragment of the past.

like ashes in an urn i put you on the shelf,
never to be disturbed,
only to be put on display.
i thought you’d be safe there.
i thought that the ashes in an urn don’t disappear because
what more can ash crumble down to?

but today,
for just a moment,
i couldn’t remember your last name.
today,
for just a moment,
you slipped away.

and now i wonder if i ever had you at all.

(a.m.)
it's nearly 6 AM and i'm sentimental and i haven't posted on here in far too long so here's a short, spur of the moment poem. hope you enjoy **.
  Sep 2023 Rafael Melendez
unwritten
i.
hearing your name still fills me with a certain intoxicating sweetness.

ii.
i hate you. god, i hate you so much. but i love you. please come back.

iii.
i'm sorry that it had to end up like this. i don't think you care, though.

iv.
it's okay if you've lost your innocence. i've lost mine, too. life will do that to people.

v.
i was often happiest when you said my name like maybe i meant something to you.

vi.
i am stuck between wanting to forget you and wanting to crawl back to you.

vii.
most of my poems are still about you, even now.

viii.
i hope you're doing okay.

ix.
please don't forget me.

x.**
thank you.
thoughts?
  Sep 2023 Rafael Melendez
eileen
six years and counting
my words forever inside a screen
and it means a lot when someone reads my past
a person I used to know
I've changed, I'm not the same
even so
my heart sparkles when I see her
I'll try and meet her someday, somewhere
just to say- you did well
  Sep 2023 Rafael Melendez
Phia
You became
A distant memory,
Nothing left of you
But a story for the moon
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