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#confessionalpoem
You look like the life I wanted when I was pretending I wasn’t dying. She’s beautiful, obviously, and it’s not like I’m still trying— I don’t miss you. I miss the girl I thought I’d get to be if you loved me right. Do you ever ache so privately it feels impolite? Because I do— in airports where I don’t arrive, in checkout lines I barely survive, on Wednesdays, laced with something sour, in stairwells meant for girls to cower, in dresses hung with rosary thread, worn to forgive what wasn’t said. I am so well-behaved now. I nod. I smile. I bite down. I curtsy in crisis. I don’t make a scene. I bleach my longing till it gleams. I’m not still hurt, I’m just rewired. I’m not that mad, I’m just so tired. I’ve kissed the quiet on both cheeks— but I riot in my lucid weeks. I’ve made peace with playing dead, but some nights I come back red— in dreams that loop, in memory's choir, where the girl kept smiling while walking through fire. You look like the life I lied about when I swore I didn’t mind. You should hear what I don’t say about you. It rhymes sometimes.
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Apr 8, 2025
Apr 8, 2025 at 11:27 AM UTC
Kiernan515
It Rhymes Sometimes
You look like the life I wanted when I was pretending I wasn’t dying. She’s beautiful, obviously, and it’s not like I’m still trying— I don’t miss you. I miss the girl I thought I’d get to be if you loved me right. Do you ever ache so privately it feels impolite? Because I do— in airports where I don’t arrive, in checkout lines I barely survive, on Wednesdays, laced with something sour, in stairwells meant for girls to cower, in dresses hung with rosary thread, worn to forgive what wasn’t said. I am so well-behaved now. I nod. I smile. I bite down. I curtsy in crisis. I don’t make a scene. I bleach my longing till it gleams. I’m not still hurt, I’m just rewired. I’m not that mad, I’m just so tired. I’ve kissed the quiet on both cheeks— but I riot in my lucid weeks. I’ve made peace with playing dead, but some nights I come back red— in dreams that loop, in memory's choir, where the girl kept smiling while walking through fire. You look like the life I lied about when I swore I didn’t mind. You should hear what I don’t say about you. It rhymes sometimes.
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I was born mid-eye-roll, c-sectioned from a punchline. First words were don’t start with me, second were fine, stay. My spine’s in italics. I bend for no one but poetry and panic. I talk in skip-steps. I cry in parentheses. I kiss like a loophole. He said you’re hard to read, so I wrote myself louder. Time doesn’t pass here, it tantrums. I clock in and out of myself hourly. My skin’s on backward. My hunger has subtitles. My ghost writes sonnets in the steam on the mirror and signs them: Almost. I invented a verb that means to leave someone before they prove they would’ve. I use it daily. It conjugates into silence. It rhymes with obviously. The doctors say it’s chronic. Pre-traumatic glow disorder. I blush before the pain hits. I glitter out of spite. Don’t ask if I’m okay. Ask which version of me is answering. Ask if I remembered to name my wounds before dressing them up like confetti.
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Apr 6, 2025
Apr 6, 2025 at 9:56 AM UTC
Kiernan515
Pre-Traumatic Glow Disorder
I was born mid-eye-roll, c-sectioned from a punchline. First words were don’t start with me, second were fine, stay. My spine’s in italics. I bend for no one but poetry and panic. I talk in skip-steps. I cry in parentheses. I kiss like a loophole. He said you’re hard to read, so I wrote myself louder. Time doesn’t pass here, it tantrums. I clock in and out of myself hourly. My skin’s on backward. My hunger has subtitles. My ghost writes sonnets in the steam on the mirror and signs them: Almost. I invented a verb that means to leave someone before they prove they would’ve. I use it daily. It conjugates into silence. It rhymes with obviously. The doctors say it’s chronic. Pre-traumatic glow disorder. I blush before the pain hits. I glitter out of spite. Don’t ask if I’m okay. Ask which version of me is answering. Ask if I remembered to name my wounds before dressing them up like confetti.
Continue reading...
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