12/26/2021
My favorite thing about writing is the ability to control how the reader perceives the individuals that I choose to write about. I could make someone who is a bad person in nearly every aspect, look charming and gentle and soft just through the words that I choose to describe them with, or the stories I choose to tell. These are poems about the minuscule details of a specific person that seemed to overshadow the heartlessness of their reality. As with everyone, there’s so much versatility to this person… there’s the side of them that wounds, that leans into substance for security, who intentionally hurts others, and whose resting emotion is anger, but there was also a side carefully concealed that was so gentle and kind that at times, it overshadowed all the rest. Watching one of the most angry people I’ve ever met become soft (even for just a short period)-and being one of the few people to experience this version of him was the best high. Through these random bits of writing pieced together from different letters, notes, and tearfully written memories, I loved being able to highlight a specific side of him and forget for a minute about the other versions-whichever those may be.
Number 1
I know you still drive past my house just to see if I’m home
and that you think of me when you're alone You tell your friends you're fine but you’re still a bad liar- cause I hear your car down sunset. and I don’t blame you now because I do the same because real love isn’t taken away and we're telling secrets while everyone pays attention to themselves our little club without anyone else.
We're in separate cars now and somehow we still find each other. Maybe it’s a sign or maybe I just wish it was, but somehow you always end up right where I am. We just missed the mark. and I think as much as both of us wish we could keep convincing ourselves we’re fine, we both know it’s not true. l can see it when your eyes look into mine. they aren’t the same anymore. and I think I’m the only one who could ever notice it because I know you better. and I hear u everywhere. the sound of your car is enough to make my heart drop and wish I was in the passenger seat right next to you. left wondering who might be there instead. I hope we find our way back home. to our perfect fitting hands that could never hold each other right, to the Melbourne picnic table at midnight, to my tangled hair from your car windows down, spending all day just driving around because it didn’t matter where we were as long as u were next to me. You're the most reckless person I know yet I’ve never felt more free. Because you kept me safe. But now I miss calling friends to cancel plans because all we wanted was each other. and what we had right now. missing curfews just to stay with you and risking it all for just a minute knowing you’d catch me before I fall. I wish I was sitting in the roadway inn room with you right now. with the door that wouldn’t shut, and the tv with 8 channels, and the ash on the floor of the no smoking room it didn’t matter when I was laying in your arms. Now I’m watching you miss your turns when you drive past me. Hoping that this will be the time that you pull into my driveway. And I don’t know why I look into every blue car to see if it’s you. Because I don’t know what I think it’ll change, but maybe I just want to see your face.
Anything is better than this.
Number 2
We date once a week but we keep it a secret
and we hate it but it’s the way we keep it.
You text me today
and I’m already on the way.
It’s tradition.
Once a week we share the deepest parts of us
in your bedroom
in the dark.
And when the day ends, we don’t speak again.
Until next week.
It’s only tradition.
Because were scared to let each other go
but committing is even worse
so we’re stuck in between.
It’s room temperature and it’s mediocre and it hurts.
We tell each other pretty lies
convincing ourselves of what isn’t true
because all I really want is you.
Making up for lost time,
because this day is mine.
Once a week.
Number 3
This is probably the most personal one, but I think there’s a lot to be said about the ways that drug abuse can affect a relationship. I’m only 18, so I’m sure I haven’t seen the full extent of that, but this is my experience with being in a relationship with somebody who struggles with that and the ways that it hurt me through him. I remember trying to convince everybody around me that this isn’t who he is, but I was the only one who had seen the side of him that I was trying so hard to believe in. It’s so confusing and lonely. I wrote this about missing that person so much that you’re willing to sit through anything they put you through in hopes that the person you used to know will come back. It’s about watching something that otherwise could’ve been salvageable fall apart in front of you.
You said you love me and that you loved who you were when you were with me. How you didn’t need drugs to be happy. You were sober, and I loved you that way. Because you didn’t notice, but your eyes lit up and sparkled in a way I hadn’t seen before. and your smile was bigger than it once was and you listened more and you were kinder and I could tell you were happier. But it was the impeding doom- I couldn’t take it. And it was over all at once, and then you weren’t sober anymore, and I was so scared. Everything that I dreaded was part of you now- your eyes didn’t light up anymore, and you no longer smiled the way I once adored, and you no longer felt safe. You asked me why I still cared- and I said I was scared for you, that anytime an ambulance drove past I prayed you were ok, anytime a cop car was stopped on the side of the road I looked to make sure it wasn’t for you. Loops around the block and prayers every day that he would keep you safe.
I can't anymore,
I’m too far away. Too far, and too scared. I can’t do anything it’s like watching you fall apart in front of me and you give me just enough to make me worried but not enough to ever be able to do anything about it. In the end its what ruined us.
Number 4 You hold me while we talk about what could’ve been. How if you told me to stay, I would’ve, how we would’ve been happy. You say that nothing would be like this, that we wouldn’t have to miss each other. How can you miss someone whose holding your hand? I never understood it until now.
Number 5
This was the most recent one I’ve written. It’s about when you’re doing better after being away from someone, and moving on with your life. I wrote this after his graduation when I realized how bittersweet it is watching him accomplish things that we’d always talked about together- about how I just wish I was there to celebrate with him like we’d always planned. Today was your graduation and I know you thought about me, because you passed my house on the way there. I’m so proud of you and I wish you knew, how badly I wish I was there to celebrate with you. I drove past the venue on the way home. and I cried but only a little. I hardly miss us anymore, I just thought that I would be there to celebrate with you.
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