Before I knew you
the buzz of a motorcycle
never made me shiver

Before we met
guys in black
never turned my head

Before I saw you
I was slowly falling
for the sweet kind of boy
who was falling for this guarded girl

Before you texted me
I didn’t know that obsession
could feel like a sarcastic comment
and sweaty palms, and jealousy

Before you opened your mouth
the skin on the back of my neck tingled,
I felt like a beaten dog before you even
knew you held the whip

Before you complimented my ***
I thought I looked about as ****
as everyone’s kid sister,
or cousin, or little neighbor girl

Before you asked to be “friends”
I didn’t realize benefits
could actually scare the **** out of me
and that a fantasy might come true

Before we talked in my room
I didn’t realize how tense
I really was
and just how blunt I could be

Before you asked “Wanna hang out later?”
I didn’t see that it was my body
and that you weren’t trying to control
just offering fun

Before you turned on the blue Christmas lights
I didn’t have a clue what mood lighting was
how it could highlight your skin
darken your eyes
soften every inch of fabric

Before you said “Come over here”
I didn’t think that line was ****
because that’s how my ex
asked for a kiss

Even before you told me you were kidding
when you said “Okay, now leave”
I knew you were going to walk back
and kiss me again.

After the matter, he said he saw it like an old black-n-white
because I had said I loved Cary Grant films.
But I know now that he couldn’t have possibly
because he told me he hated classics.
We stood three baby steps away from each other
on that beautifully manicured stretch of green.
He smiled so widely and wildly,
seeing as if through a sleeping gas dream haze,
I, ever cautious, looked with clear, hard blue eyes
and scrutinized and analyzed until
the grass was jaded green and the blue sky
was smudged with laundry grey clouds.
He told me excitedly, in what he assumed
was a lover’s pur, that he had something for me.
I thought the tone was an aggressive command
and I snapped my eyes back from the splotch
of mud from my boots, and was horrified to find
that I was now a mile away from him.
How’d I end up here, and why didn’t he notice
I wasn’t where he was? When I asked after the matter,
he said with venom that he assumed I would follow,
like I always did.

He had pulled from his pocket a beating pink heart
and stretched his arm out to me, but I shook my head.
I can’t reach it from here, I really tried to let him hear.
I am no where ready to take that!
But he smirked with older superiority,
a grin I had come to loathe,
and brought his arm back behind his head,
like a veteran pitcher at the mound, and followed through.
But he was never in baseball, he was a speech kid in high school,
he didn’t know how to throw, and the wind picked up
that little pink heart like a paper plane.

I tried, I really did. I ran until my lungs ignited
with blood, pumped my legs until the muscles
fell off, strained my hands and fingers forward until they were as long
as red oaks in an ancient forest.
But it wasn’t enough. I was still thousands of feet
away from catching the weak little ball of emotion,
because I hadn’t played ball since I was fifteen.

The delicate little heart landed in this thick brown mud puddle.
On such a lovingly cared for lawn, why was there
a huge-*** mud pond?!
I frantically waded in to try to and help it.
When I found it, the heart was contentedly
sitting in the mud as if it had landed in
a warm kettle of chocolate.
I was sad to see it so easily mislead, and knew I had to return
because I knew I couldn’t clean this little bruised ******.

As gently as I knew how, I eased it out of the mud,
and stoically walked back to the boy
who had so carelessly thrown his heart.
Unfortunately, the grass was slicker than i thought,
and the sun was in my eyes, and I guess
I’m just clumsier than I thought, so about five steps away
I tripped and dropped the fragile little heart.
As the tender pink thing landed, finally it
and he noticed the state everything was in.
He looked down at the banged, muddy heart
and I watched in fear as his eyes filled up.
With quiet misunderstanding he asked
how could this happen? Why did you do this?

I must admit, I just can’t do displays of emotion,
so I told him I was sorrier than words could say
and as iron bars of guilt began to pile along my shoulders,
I turned 180 degrees away from him.
I felt his hand reach for me, but all he could grasp
was my rustling skirt, and I couldn’t bare to see him,
so I sprinted forward and let my dress rip to flowing shreds.

The air from his screams helped pushed me into a flight.
The sooner I disappeared, the sooner he’d take notice of his heart,
I kept telling myself this, praying for this.
After the matter, when I asked what he saw,
all he said was a pretty girl that dropped his heart at his feet,
and step on it, smeared it with her ***** boots.
I deserved the harsh words, I do know that.
This is no plea for the girl that broke your heart,
but did you ever think she might have really tried,
and it isn’t completely her fault? Sometimes she’s
afraid to see your name on her phone
because she can’t bare to see the beaten heart
she just couldn’t save.

Have you had a day
where you’re filled with
wild green energy
and you just have to
do something with it
before it hiccups through
your pores and hair?
Today was like that, with mist pulled
around snug, like a silencer on
the world’s nerve to speak.

And the people said the fog was
scary, creepy like a bad horror film,
posted pictures of it online like
some bad 7th grade
party from 3 years ago.
I didn’t see it though,
I was so wrapped up in
my own ****.
Finally I got up and walked
around campus, to walk off
feelings of unrequited infatuation
and restless rejection.

At first all I saw was
murk around bare brown trees
as I imagined skeevy
yellow leers around the corners.
I turned up the pulsing purple
music clenched in my fist
and closed my eyes to block out it all.

After the fifth sappy song
I looked around and smelled
the mist move in,
looked up and watched
the fog fall down,
heard the street lamps buzz hungrily
saw their lights bleed into the haze
like a sluggish future scar.

The fog was so lonely,
so desperate for attention
it was ******* away
a night light’s only defense
against bedtime boogie men.
All the while I had wandered
the mist had been there
wanting me, shielding me from others
craving my breath that tickled it’s
jaded, gray overcast.
The clouds had pulled away
from the heavens to be
with us mere mortals
and all we did was **** them.

I stood for a moment in shame
and let the mist work it’s way
through me hair, gently.
I fished my selfish, pale hands from
my pockets and let the fog
chill them with vapory laugh.
I breathed in more deeply
letting the mist know that I
was sorry that I had not noticed
it sooner.

So I heard once that there’s always
some gnarly looking carrot
in every bag of carrots
and you’re supposed make a wish on it
if you get it.
But I didn’t have a bag of veggies
I had a jar of Gumby and Poki
shaped gummies.

Finally the day came when there
were only two Gumbys left.
One was bent in half and
smashed together
and the other looked as all the rest had.
I pulled out the sad little gummy and
made a wish
like it was some ugly carrot.
I wished my crush would kiss me,
And giddily I walked to a coffee house
because I was hoping he would be there
even though I sternly told myself that
he had no reason to be there.
I found the coffee house closed and knew
my wish wasn’t happening that night.

I talked with a friend about my woes
and she confessed her heartache.
We smiled and laughed and died
just a little on the inside.
We had hoped that in college we wouldn’t
feel like middle school girls
with unrequited crushes.

The next day he dropped off a fish
(and this is no euphemism
or pretty poetry slang,
I opted to fish-sit while
he went home for break).
After he left, and
feeling more than silly
I took out the last Gumby
and pretended.
I pretended that it was every wish
on a boy I had made
since I realized boys weren’t
completely disgusting.
On my way to class
I held the little gummy in my
frozen, clenched fist
and wished
that’d he’d kiss me before he left.
I made it really specific
because every movie I’d ever seen
with genies in it had taught me that
specifics were key to avoiding
mishap and mayhem.

Obviously, it didn’t come true.
And I feel like I’m back in middle school,
wishing on ugly carrots and stars
that look suspiciously like airplanes.
Everyone has crushes,
and still more wishes.
Why I thought
at the age of nineteen
when the glamour of Disney-endings
and romantic-comedy plots
had tarnished to realism,
that a Gumby gummy prayer
would come true,
well I’m not entirely sure.

Maybe it’s no matter how old you are
there are always ugly carrots
and shooting stars
and fast airplanes
and romantic comedies
and gummies in the shape of
kids’ show characters.
Maybe no matter how disappointed I am
there will always be unrequited crushes
and genies for wishes
and God for prayers
and heaven forbid
hope.