you have no idea.
it's funny to me
how you have no idea.

i've spent exactly five hundred and ninety-nine days
denying any semblance of romantic notions.
i've spent exactly one year, seven months, three weeks, and a day
with a fragment of my soul
in love with you.

five hundred and ninety-nine days ago,
i had no idea.
(much like how you have no idea, even now)
i didn't even think
i just knew-
i wanted to know you.
i wanted to be your friend.
i wanted to be near you.
a crush never occurred to me!
but that fragment of my soul;
something tells me it knew this whole time.
it knew and it wanted to reach out to you.
so i've followed you
i've sought you out from crowds
(not really knowing that i was searching
for you, specifically)
this whole time.

maybe i should clarify but
when i speak of denial
i speak of mine.
i spent these eighty-one weeks and a day
telling myself i only wanted to be your friend.
there was simply no way, in my mind
that i wanted to hold you
kiss you
love you.

i still don't want to kiss you.
not right now.
but i would love to lean into your side,
and curl an arm around your waist
and hide my face in your neck.

you're slowly erased
from my mind;
that the pain of
the past is not
resurfacing anymore

but maybe—
I overwrote it
with denial,
that I forgot how

love, anger and heartbreak

once looked like on the
blank canvas,
of my healing heart.

would new colours,
be drawn across
anytime soon?

You played with all your toys
Smiled and talked to her
Putting up a good show
But it’s time to realize
No one is waiting at home
So don’t shake your head no.



© Sofia Villagrana 2018

Demons of change taunted me
If I don’t do what I always did;
Fear of being strange haunted me.
What punishment for what I hid?
Maybe things will be a bit better
And settle down a bit after while
But life doesn’t seem to work well
Like when I could wink and smile.

My looks used to get me a ways,
Where mornings could turn into nights
I could have fun and party for days
And everything seemed fun and right.
I started out drinking and using
To overcome all my social fears.
It was just for weekends, partying,
But then it turned into many years.

I bought the drinks and the grass
And suddenly I was a welcome guy.
Later I too publicly fell on my ***
And nobody even asked me why.
But I caught myself holding ****
And *****, and keeping quiet
So nobody would come knocking
To party hearty and to try it.

And then one day, demons came
And heartlessly showed the truth;
They showed me myself by name,
I was no longer a pretty youth.
Only those as bad as I had become
Could stand to spend time with me.
I came to and realized I was numb
That my life had turned into tragedy.

‘Why’ yawps and whines in the corridor, dim
lights paving ceilings to greater unkindnesses;
Greater unknowns fester in cigarette smoke,
And always in dwindling moonlight . What do you
Suppose of yourself? Is it to be, or not
Until men in hats set your sad sky aflame?
The sunset stains you, you’re frittered and worn,
Deluged in the spirits of seventeen.
The night unties the laces of school kids
And you lie in your idle sheets of euphoria
To ignore, or simply not to know.
Where did you go
When you said you don’t know, in sheets shrouding school kids
and their shoelaces all soaked with the sap
Of seventeen, sunset coloured in daylight
Beckoned by men in hats asking rudely of
Scathed suppositions and how they might sound
When the moon is seen blushing in thieving late hours  
Catching cigarettes with fading lungs in its glow,
And the greater unknowns which prey on us all;
At the end of poorly lit corridors, asking why.

'i couldn't care less about him really'
'i am not even serious about him'
'it's just a big fat crush, you know'
'it will easily pass by, don't worry'

i want to say all that
with a straight face
but i'll be lying if i did
i'd be playing myself bad

i'm tired hiding under a mask
where I have to pretend
that I love you less
than I already do—  I don't.

— you mean everything to me