I can understand
That it might be strange
To write of green eyes and their depth
When really I know nothing of it
I was lost in golden eyes
And pretty smiles
Admiring your face when you didn't notice
I never really saw, did I?
Kind of ironic

I can still taste the scent of yesterday.
The supple marmalade within your eyes.
A half united, a half sweetly divides.
Concrete angels, hands held, spirited away.
I will begone, I will climb this rock alone.
I will pray, for my sins I must atone.

No one understands the lone *****'s song.
No one visits the grave sat in the sand.
No one covets the cancerous man's hand.
No one imagines a feeling so strong.

Remember these words, and please, wear them well.
Remember these words, and descend into hell.

She was beautiful.
The moment I was graced with her presence the air became a warm, calming breeze. It took me over in the way an ocean wave would.  I’d been with her for five minutes before I wanted to undress her. Not in the way which her black lace dripped over her shoulder exposing her sun kissed skin. I wanted to undress her in the way which she was naked and exposed in the light of her own essence. I desired to know what dark day allowed her eyes to read such solemnness. I clung to know of the day that gave light to the darkness & allowed her eyes to twinkle of the stars.
She read books in the dim light corner of her faux leather chair surrounded by plants. Gleaming to the light as if she was the only reflection of its pure form. I’d been admiring her from the across the room as she grazed up the pages of her latest novel.
She always looked to have known something more than that was ever said. I swear, there was a whisper through the crack of her bay window. The wind breathing secrets to her instead of air.
The way she smirked led you to know that she knew of something you never would. I’d never have known what love was but looking at her in that moment I thought I just might.

let me lay a kiss upon your temple

count your freckles, soft skin so simple

I thought I’d be smited, right then and there

The red gravel spilling into the dugout

Was now plastic aquarium rocks

I was in a bowl, drowning underwater

It felt like drowning a lot of the time I was out there

Mostly because I was easily distracted and couldn’t play softball for ****

When Paige kissed me, I cried

Now, those pieces of red dirt
were a hellfire beneath me.

My religious upbringing was the kind that’s secretly stifling. The kind that permeates so deep that to act against it is to act against yourself.

This generational inherited catholic guilt.

The idea that I should be unimportant and unassuming and sinning was important in a bad way.

I knew I would only get one trip to the bathroom per service, I planned it carefully each week

So that it would take the most time

So I could stand in the great hall and twiddle my thumbs

As we were  forbidden to re-enter the chapel while the father was speaking

I am forbidden from many things as a child.

I’m forbidden from tears as if I’m not important enough to have them.

I am not stone and my tears are not blood. I am not a miracle. I am not a sight to behold. I am not a message from god.

I am not the prophetic ****** Mary in my mother’s dreams the night a relative passes.

I am not allowed to love without meaning.

When Paige kissed me I cried.

I had to tell everyone in t-ball that I was 5 when I was only 4 because my mother wanted me to start a year early.

I hid the sign up forms they gave us at school each year, but my mom would register me in person.

Every year she’d tell me, just one more year, this can be the last one.

This went on for nine years.

After I made my first communion. I asked to quit

I had to study five more years to make my confirmation sacrament, effectively promising I’d stay in the church,
before my mother would let me leave.

The irony was lost on her.

When Paige kissed me I cried.

What a cruel way to hurt someone. This was worse than the tripping, the taunting, the terrorizing.

Her tenderness.

I often wondered why she treated me as she did—I was already an ugly duckling, a left fielder, a loser.

Her mom was the coach, and she was the best on the team. They all listened to her, which meant they all hated me.

She’d call me a **** and pull my hair.

When paige kissed me, I cried

Why couldn’t it have been anyone else, why not natalie johnston

I never told anyone else, I decided it wasn’t my secret to share.

But I am tired of keeping secrets of what people who hate me did to my body.

Retrospectively, it’s easy to try to be flattered. I’m sure it was hard and weird for her to have those feelings.

I’m sure she expressed them as well as she could.

But I didn’t want Paige to kiss me.

I WANTED Paige to stop calling me a ****.

I wanted her get hit in the face with a softball

and I wanted it to shove her nose into her brain.

And I wanted her to die.

And

I prayed for her to die.