There is an angel wing etched onto the inside of my left wrist. I look at it often. I tried writing over it, scratching it off, even sanding it down, but nothing seemed to work and eventually I came to terms with the fact that it’s permanently on my body.
there’s a girl somewhere who wears the other wing. Sometimes I catch myself staring into the room that should have been hers. I think of how she would have decorated it and how different life would have been if I had her face to come home to everyday. I still think of her when I hear the words “best friend” sometimes I wake up in a hazy confusion and I don’t recognize the room that I’m in and I wonder where my dog is and why there’s no coffee on my bedside table but it’s never long before that realization hits and I’m forced to go through the stages of grief as I make my own coffee in apartment still unfamiliar to me. sometimes I want to call and ask what he had to say that day but then I wonder if it’s even still okay to call. I want to tell him that I miss our friendship and that no one has ever known me the way he has. most days I think of my father. I like to think of what he’s doing and if he ever thinks of me. I have to stop my thumbs from tapping his name on my phone and asking why he has no photos of me in the house I’ve only seen once. I want to tell him I’m sorry for not being able to forgive him although I always hoped that we could find some common ground and even something to laugh about but I think that ship has sailed and a part of me, no matter how small it may be, thinks it’s for the best. he’s the first thing I think of when I hear the words “first heartbreak” and now as I drive around this island, I think of the boy that brought me here. I sit on beaches and mountains that I thought he’d show me but I’m alone and I found them all myself. Sometimes I want to knock on his door and ask to hear the story of us from his perspective, not because I miss him, but because he made me too sad to remember any of it. i want to tell him that life turned out to be so much sweeter without him. on very rare occasions I grab the box I always swear I won’t open again and skim through the remnants of the people who no longer love me. My hands hover over receipts and dried flowers, Christmas cards and worn letters. i may choke up for a bit but their love was a gift that will sit on my shelf, never aging or moving, and it will serve as a reminder to my many future selves how deeply I am capable of loving. yes, songs still get stuck in my throat and I still glance at every white car on the highway and I still get homesick for a city that was never mine and my heart still sinks at the sight of beautiful women with honey nectar hair, but this is how I remind myself that loneliness is not eternal. I didn’t love these people once, yet I’ve loved them all before. And even though they might not love me anymore, this is proof enough that I will love again and again and again and again. 6/15/2022 the summer of my lifeHow can I be sick in the summer of my life?
I am in the very center of paradise and still I am sick. I spend mornings on foggy mountaintops afternoons on lush beaches and nights in the arms of a man I think I might love, the ocean is quite literally at my doorstep but still, I feel like I haven’t spoken in weeks like I haven’t left my house in months like my curtains have been drawn since I moved in. im 18 floors up and the heat should still be able to reach me up here but it never does sometimes if I stare at my ceiling for long enough snowflakes start to fall, my lips turn blue and the frost gathering on my lashes starts to cloud my vision. my cheeks redden not from long days under Hawaiian suns but from a chronic coldness I can’t seem to shake. I am in paradise surrounded by sunshine and wreathed in love but still I am sick. You were never a stranger
even when you were. my mind knew you before my body did but still my skin sighed of relief when it met yours. my head immediately found your shoulder your hand immediately found my cheek. it needed no map no compass no directions just the gentle guidance of familiarity. although my mind knew you before my body did, It was peaceful synchrony when they met all of you. 5/22/2022 he is venusThe boy is Venus,
abundantly beautiful and voluptuous charmingly whole and peaceful. his Venusian lips resting in a perfectly lunar crescent and ambrosial eyes so blue that all else sinks to the mundane. the boy is Venus and I have always been the moon. always modest and obedient to the gravity pulling me in, a chronically indifferent creature of the night only remembered if the timing is just right. but the boy is Venus and suddenly I want to be the sun, the absolute center of gravity and the creator of all cosmic chaos, blindingly bright and unwaveringly warm gloriously golden and larger than life. if the boy is Venus, I want to be the reason for his orbit. 5/13/2022 written in purple penhow am I expected to sleep when you’re near?
if I drifted off for a moment, I’d be afraid to miss even a beat of the melodic rhythm of your heart. why would I willingly slip into unconsciousness when I know I won’t be able to hear your voice? though even in my dreamscapes, when I forget the peculiar way you sound I push my knuckles into the dirt and the ground sings for you. I want to tell you that I’m awake each time you leave and that I feel every kiss and I choke back smiles, careful not to ruin those moments and I track your steps to the door and listen for the click of the lock and then I wait for the gentle thud of the door closing and then I finally fall asleep again because I know I won’t be missing out on your presence. but I did not go back to sleep this morning. no, this morning the absence of your arms made me aware of how present you are in my heart. so i lie awake, on your side of the bed, writing this. 4/22/2022 no place like homei am no stranger to homesickness.
and most days, given the life i’ve chosen for myself, it’s something i’ve learned to live with. too often i find myself missing the saddened palms of my southern home and the rows of rainbow houses along old stone roads. i miss atlantic mornings and dewdrops on my doorstep. i miss afternoons under the shade of my angel oak, but i’m sure the soft imprint of my frame in the tall grass would find me unfamiliar now. sometimes i’m tempted to close my eyes a click my heels to see if i’d be standing on the corner of king and queen when i opened them, but then i remember that it’s not my home anymore. even more often than that, i miss my childhood street and the miles of midwestern wheat on all four sides of my home, sunsets over flattened land and the acres of blooming bushes and flourishing flowers that my mother has made her life’s work. but every time i return, i find that i’ve grown too tall for my bed and the color of my walls have changed and the clothes in my closet may as well be skeletons the way they refuse to fit my painfully adult-like body. And i go downstairs and see that the dogs are getting old and they don’t chase me the way they did years ago and my brother is no longer just a flight of stairs away, but rather 3 flights across the globe and my mother has gray hair where she used to have blonde and i look in the entryway mirror, frightened to see that i have changed too, because the last time i stood in front of it i was 16 years old and that place was still my home. but it isn’t anymore. and then comes the bittersweet realization that home is not these places that i’ve loved so dearly, but rather wherever i am. he was my first love, and i will always choose to remember him that way.
do not try to tell me that it was nothing more than high school sweethearts and doe-eyed stares in darkened rooms, because it was unyieldingly true and so very real for me. though it would be much easier for me to reduce the memories of him down to only the heartache and wasted time, i will make the conscious decision to remember him fondly. he may have forgotten that we were friends once but i didn’t, so when i think of him i will send him light and love and carry on with my day. after all, what good would it do to hate someone who found me, loved me, led me to where i’m supposed to be, and then set me free? it would do no good so i will remember him fondly and let him go gracefully. in my mind, we will always be children in my twin-sized bed who loved each other the best we knew how until it felt selfish to keep the other from loving the world. we may have grown out of each other, but i know we will grow into greener gardens apart. so as I watch him bloom from afar, i will remember him fondly. 4/15/2022 I hope this finds you.If I stood in a room face to face with all the men I’ve loved before, I have no doubt that I’d run to you.
It’s only been 86 days since you last held me but I’m certain I’d choose your achingly familiar arms, without question or consideration. I’d go to you even if it meant just one more weekend in our city, one more morning where you make my coffee, one more afternoon in the park, one more late night in the parking lot of our spot, one more boring day, one more car ride, one more trip to the store. even on our worst day, I know I’d still go to you. I miss my best friend. I want to find peace.
but i’m afraid that in order to do so, i would have to remove you completely. cut ties with everyone who knows your face, never return to the place we both call home, sever every limb you once held so gently. in order to remove you, i would have to go blind, deaf, braindead even. but what would i be after that? one big open wound, a pile of limbs unknowing and unspeaking, faceless and unbreathing, without hands and without home without life and a heart cold as stone. although grateful for peace, I would be nothing. Oh but what good would that be? even in death, my lifeless legs would run to you. 3/29/2022 you were my best friend (reprise)I want to remember you fondly.
I want to hear your name and think only of soft touches and gentle words. I want to be able to stand in the same room as you and be nothing less than overjoyed for you and the love that you’ve found. But I was made with untrustworthy legs and tear ducts that will only ever flood for you and I’m certain I would fall to a puddle at your feet. My heart still rests in your hand, and if you peeled back the layers of rage and regret you would see that underneath it all, I’m just heartbroken. I see your face and remember everything I’ve done to keep you and wonder if it was all for nothing. was it revenge you were seeking? and if so, does that mean it was all a lie? Please don’t tell me because I don’t want to know. I’d take a year of false sincerity over a lifetime of knowing your true intentions. Today I went to the place I thought we would be married at for no real reason but to wonder. I wondered if you ever think about me or if you ever really meant it when you said you loved me or if you remember the last time you kissed me or the 4 and a half years we spent loving each other. I wondered if you realize that I feel like I have wasted the best years of my life on a stupid boy who I knew could never love me the way I deserve to be loved. will you ever feel ashamed? |
Proudly powered by Weebly