One look, they’re a lover by the shine in their eye,
that glistening light gives me a dopamine high.
It takes a moment, an analytic check,
otherwise leave their heart in a wreck.
You will have to stand still while you hear the cry,
but he’ll forget about it later with his hand on your thigh,
you feel the panic rush over you as you say goodbye.
A stranger beside you gives your lips a peck,
One look, they’re a lover.
As bricks keep coming in, you look like a bad guy,
rinsing your hair darkened by the black dye.
He throws you gifts with his paycheck,
you know deep down - bad check,
One look, they’re a lover.
One thing I won’t deny about my younger years, I was a bit of a player when I finally got the ball rolling. I wasn’t ‘extremely attractive’, but I was charismatic, which lead people into my life quite easier. People loved me, it was weird, but it wasn’t due to fame, it was due to not really knowing how to convey love itself.
Let’s be real, how many of us as kids went: ‘I want a girlfriend who I will love!’? To then realise, wait, no you don’t, you didn’t think of the ‘long-run’ you thought of the ‘now’ and how much fun you could get out of that thrill of being with someone.
Despite the ‘thrill’ a lot of times when people began to get a lot more ‘personal’ I would not pursue, I would often back down or not let it escalate that far. I was terrified of being in that situation and sometimes, still am to this day.
When you can play hearts, people come to think of you as the ‘bad boy’, sort of stereotype; People see you as a heartbreaker and in a way, they wouldn’t be wrong. I’ve definitely broke plenty of hearts in the past, but I think there were times it reversed back on me and backfired badly. A lot of the time being a ‘player’ consists of who can leave who first hanging more than ‘let’s genuinely make this work’.
There are times being a player you would even advance onto Strangers romantically rather easily.
The black hair dye is to reference how entering my earlier teens I was very much into the 2000s ‘emo’ trend of dying your hair black, saying you are ‘edgy’ and all this and that and sometimes it’s just funny to look back on. I definitely was an emotional kid and I just often didn’t know how to express it and I think I saw the emo subculture as a way to express my inner feelings.
So many guys bought me gifts, it was actually insane. I mostly would receive games if anything, but you’d be shocked how much someone would do for you if you have them wrapped around your finger. Admittedly, today, I probably wouldn’t do that, I just think it was a bit cruel how I used to almost play these people’s feelings and they would give me everything they had and it just wasn’t ‘enough’ because they never had a chance to begin with. They were definitely deep in the friendzone.
Now I’m more independent when it comes to relationships with people, I try my best to give as much to them as they give me or more, solely because I don’t want someone to feel like I am using them just for money, because in the end money isn’t love, it never is and never was.
The beautiful part about the ending is when you show affection and interest in someone who doesn’t reflect those interests, it captures a player’s attention like ‘I could easily get everyone else, why is this different?’ and it links into Shades of Blue a bit, which will be later on in the book.
This poem’s form follows the structure of a Rondeau which is a rather short poem, but it definitely was fun to write, it was interesting to see what I could do with the limitation of words but I think also including those words into things that reflect on my past was the biggest challenge.
