I hated how I felt about you
I cherished you and held your attention
I nurtured it, fed it love and affection
If I envisioned it
It would glow like a beacon in my hands
But I still hated how I felt about you
Because you’d never choose to feel the same
And you never wanted love in that way
I wished there was a **** switch
Where my romantic inclination towards you
Could be terminated
So that I may see you in the only way
You wished to be seen
But you stayed over that night
I looked over the edge of the dorm room bed
I saw your quiet eyelids
Shielding your busy eyes
And I wanted to hold you
I wanted to place a kiss on your cheek
No, I wanted to kiss you
On your strawberry lips
Of course I never told you
I kept it hidden, locked, door after door
I didn’t want to scare you
And make you believe
People will always, and only want more
Time between us grew older
And my love remains
But I wish to tell you
Addison, my friend
I have loved you since fifth grade

On the eve of Christmas
When it rolls around each year
I pray for the feeling
Of being unable to sleep a wink
My bones chattering in excitement
Keeping me awake
In anticipation, I sink
Hoping to see Santa
Come down the fireplace
With sacked magic
Loaded with presents
But long has passed
Since I’ve grown old enough
To know the truth
This fairy tale I practiced in earnest
Was little more than a staged coup
Christmas morning
Feels like Christmas mourning
When you realize not every child
Gets a gift or a full stocking that uplifts
Or when you’ve seen your parents
In their parent clothes
No sign of shiny, rubber boots
A cob webbed beard
Or Rudolph’s nose
Christmas mourning
Comes around once a year
Until the magic reappears
In the form of paying it forward
To children you love and revere
But what is stolen once
Can be stolen twice
When they grow older
And figure out
Not every child is visited
By Santa and his reindeers

Maybe I’ll see you again someday
In a weird, unexpected place
And you’ll say “hi, what’s your name”
Because for a moment you forgot

I’ll look different but still be the same
And a flicker in your eyes
Will name my name
And you’ll remember
All that you blinked away

I’ll know you immediately
Because I saw you grow up in my sleep
I’ve imagined you older, and loved
Not in the way that I made you think
That’s how lovin is meant to be
Knowing my love was never enough
It never filled your cup

There’s wrinkles in the corner of your eyes
And defined smile lines
I’ll never imagine you to age unhappy
You have a way of never admitting defeat

It always feels so real
Everytime I picture you and I
Reuniting under the same sky
And it becomes “I love you the same”
And your heart didn’t forget my name
You say you never should’ve passed me
All. the. blame.

It’s just a fairy tale
I tell myself to fall asleep
So I can touch my hand to your cheek
And we’re lovers again

Stop telling me I’m not alone
Just because so many others feel alone
Meanwhile, none of you make me feel seen
And it’s my fault because I just cling
Onto a shred of affection or attention
And connections are sabotaged
By my own self,
By being my own self
People have tried to love me
And now they stay away
Because I can’t behave
I can’t get better in the name of a relationship
I can’t change myself at my core for you
And the you is interchangeable
I break and fix with patchwork
All to replace the one person who I loved first
Mother dearest you’ve left this wound
This shipwreck, and its sunken below
The sharks and fish swim in and out
And no one will ever know
That I was once afloat
I ask someone remembers me
How I was then,
But I cannot even do that myself
Because there was never a before you
And there’s been no after you
It’s perpetual, I still scream out your name
At night when I feel your presence wane
You’re a floor below
But no matter if we’ve leveled
I’ll never reach you
I want this version of you I created
That repaired the you that sullied me
To be so real, I won’t question it
And it never is
You might as well have died
Before I even got to know you
Because I’ve never had a mother
Just a woman who yelled then smothered
A woman who threatened then pampered
Inflated then deflated my worth
And it’ll never leave me
Your impact teases me
Even still, I miss you so
I miss the mom I made out of snow
I’m a creator
I make things my reality
Live it as if everyone is
Until I no longer can
I remember snowfall
In a desert like land
It’s easier to make you out of snow than sand

It really drives me insane
The way you talk about her
Just like I’m not listening
I hope you’ve found her

It’s cruel the way you punish me
And I still understand
But it still ***** to be hated by you
Because of what happened to me

I can’t help I lost my mind
But that plead is long over
Because you’ve got this ******* arm
Bringing out the big guns

Loaded them up and shot me
Right where I’d die
And I’ll go knowing that
Death never did us part

~

I hope you live out your life
With some other woman
Maybe it’s her or some wife
And you’ll never leave her

You’ll tell her in sickness
And in health,
Till death do us part
And I’ll be nothing to you

But I wonder will you think of me
The way you left me to crumble
Under the weight
Of the promises you couldn’t keep

I can’t help but hope I’ll haunt you
For the rest of your life
I can’t help it, but I wish I didn’t
Want you to cry

You can’t even cry
I didn’t mean a single tear
You can’t even cry
It’s like I was never here

That’s my biggest fear.

My dad tells me
That you aren't "the one"
And that somewhere deep down
I know that's true
But he's got it backwards
Because its somewhere deep down
That I wish it weren't true for me

When something about you
Regarding me, and us
Is supposed like that,
I am intrigued
Like a shadow, in my peripheral
I do a double-take
And swing back around to it

If anyone else can believe
That you aren't the one for me
Why can't I do so?
I want to know how
To come to that conclusion
I want to rewrite my beliefs
I want to write you out of them

You had never done much wrong
You never gave me less than love
But we still ended up apart
And it doesn't sit right with my heart
To wonder if that girl you work with
Is your "the one" instead of me
Or any girl for that matter

I don't know how to move on
When deep down somewhere
I believe we are each other's fates
I don't want to move on
Just as much as I do
It begs the question,
"Is this how I know our love is true?"

But that doesn't make sense
I think love might be felt in bones
I think it might be safe and secure
I think it might be obvious
So, is that my answer?
The fact I don't know how to feel
Is how I know?

I'm so wishy-washy
I'm so back and forth...
Is this how you felt
When our love had run its course?
I wish you'd come home
I wish I could go home
But I wish to forget home too

Her bad mood
Tries to intrude
On conversation,
On laughter

Her lack of power
Compels her to cower
Behind a false sense
Of tyrannical control

Her own home and head
Never gave sanctuary; instead
They fostered hostility
And made her feel blind

Blind when searching for
Places with an open door
With a place to lie down
And to quiet all sound

She’s fighting herself inside
Can’t say she never tried
When the battle leaves her mind
And infects the entire family line

My bad mood
Tends to intrude
On conversation,
On laughter

And I’m sorry
But I learned it from you