Poetry

🚨NEW🚨 - You

I was wrong, okay?

I have loved you since that very first day,

When we met for lunch, complete strangers yet old friends.

Then everything with him happened,

And everything I knew fell apart.

I needed time to hurt, time to heal,

Time to get over what I hadn’t known at the time

I was already ready to leave. 

That hurt turned to fear as we grew closer.

Who would’ve guessed that becoming your best friend

Would be the thing that kept us apart? 

You weren’t the first friend I had fallen for,

But you were the one I needed the most.

I couldn’t risk losing you. 

I couldn’t risk losing us. 

So I was selfish; I applied bandages

And hid behind a broken heart. 

I let you think, unknowingly convinced you,

That you weren’t the one for me.

Please don’t be mad that I lied to you,

I lied to myself, too.

It was my best performance,

I deserved a standing ovation,

Because EVERYONE believed me.

They were all too willing to put words in my mouth,

To write me off as love sick and forlorn.  

I guess in actuality I was,

Just not in the way they thought. 

I won’t lie again, not now,

And say that everything I went through,

Not including you, was easy.

He hurt me, they hurt me;

And amidst that hurt, I lost my way.

I hurt you, too.

I guess hurting people do hurt people.

However, that pain came later.

Not to add insult to injury,

But that pain, that summer, was your fault.

You were intolerant and impatient.

Though I can’t say that I blame you. 

Who could’ve told you that my mind had changed,

That my heart was in the driver’s seat again,

And we were flooring our way back to you?

Truth is, I could have, 

But again, I can’t blame you;

I was scared, too.

So you left and came back with her:

A girlfriend - your “best friend”.

Unknowingly leaving me standing in the hallway,

A rose in hand. 

How prickly a situation, what a fine decoration 

For the walls I built to keep everyone out.

I can still see that classroom, my phone in my hand,

Those ugly words etched in black and white.

Even though I keep bringing them up, 

Please know that I forgive you for them.

They mean something special to me now,

I will always find their humor.

However, I fail to remember my face,

My reaction, other than sharing the news.

Maybe somehow telling someone else

Would change the truth.

I guess not…

“She wants to meet you,” you said.

How odd were those words, that moment,

When what you really meant:

“She wants to size you up.”

Did you not see how awkward everything was?

Did you not feel your chameleon act,

The way you changed?

I know now it was all in desperation.

You were so desperate for love, 

You craved it wholly and violently.

Now you tell me, she was filling time,

Filling the void that I had left, 

And you were merely a rebound to her. 

How silly it all seems, how naive you still are.

Didn’t I play my part beautifully?

Did you ever know? 

I fell apart while you fell for her,

I needed you while you needed her,

And the only thing she gave you was more pain.

I wasn’t the best, believe me I was no saint,

But I stood there and picked up EVERY piece.

I cut myself on every edge.

Then again, I guess your blood is on my stained glass, too.

You can’t see the pain she caused, 

You were blind and pining.

You needed to feel something again.

I watched you rip your heart out of your own chest,

Hatchet your entire future,

And stand there before her blood soaked.

Did she care? Not for a second.

Poor her, she was hurting. 

Poor her, she needed help.

Poor her, she ruined us before we were even old enough to walk.

I wish I could say that it was all in the past,

But six years later and that wound is still fresh.

Time passed, and you grew out from under her.

You moved on to Tinder, other exes,

Back to me.

But how could I let you in again?

How could I trust you not to break my heart?

I almost lost you once,

I wasn’t even the best friend I thought I was,

How could I ever open myself up to that pain again?

Still we persisted, clinging to each other in our darkest hours.

Pretending there was nothing between us.

No? Just me?

My performance was no longer Oscar worthy,

There were now holes in my story,

Chinks in my armor that only you could see straight through.

I got scared again, cornered like a wild animal.

And I lashed out, pushed away, planted distance. 

This is where I caused the most damage;

This is where I learned to cut the deepest.

After all, I was your “best friend”,

Who could possibly hurt you more than me?

Heavy hearted, I spit venom and started fights.

I clawed my way out of your corner,

Convinced you you were crazy, you were wrong;

The same way you had convinced me.

I got every ounce of freedom I wanted,

Only to turn around and find that something very important was missing.

You.

It took a while for me to see it,

But I couldn’t live without you.

You were my oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, 

Carbon, calcium, and phosphorus.

Turns out you were wrong, too. 

But how on Earth could you love me

After everything I had done?

How could I possibly say that it was you,

It had always been you.

Since the first day we met,

And every day in between, how could it not be you?

How could I convince you of that 

From the same mouth that had said it would never be you?

What a wicked web we had weaved.

I paced for hours, fretted over nothing, 

Wrung my hands in absolute anxiety.

Slowly, bit by bit, I tried on my confession.

I told my best friend, then my mom.

I told myself.

But every single time, my words clung in my throat

When I went to tell you.

I thought maybe I could let fate decide.

Then I decided fuck that!

NOTHING is standing in my way this time - 

Not another girl, not another relationship,

Not the universe, and certainly not myself.

I owed it to me, to us, to make this confession.

Even if you hung me out to dry in the process,

And I would probably have deserved that,

At least I would know.

So I went to dinner, 

Somehow overlooked everything I hated about that night, 

Because there was you.

You were so handsome and so kind,

Everything I loved and remembered you to be.

I wanted to reach out, to hold you,

But fear rooted me in place. 

You deserved so much more than I had to give,

Than I might be willing to give.

What if I had been wrong?

What if you still loved her?

What if you had moved on from me?

What if…?

With trembling hands, and words of encouragement 

From a likely annoyed roommate,

I took the cowards route, too eager to wait another second,

But not brave enough to have said it in the car,

And I texted you everything I had been holding back

Since April, that first date, when the idea of us sprouted.

Back then the soil hadn’t been tainted, it was fresh,

Well nurtured and fertilized, full of beautiful potential.

Now, it was dry and empty, hard packed and deplenished.

Even when you replied, rejoiced in my confession,

I could still feel the apprehension deep in my bones,

I begged for us to take things slow,

And how glad I am that we did.

Together we watched two broken hearts,

Worn, ragged, and thoroughly bruised,

Roar back to life with every moment we shared:

Holding your hand in the backseat, kissing you on my bed,

Telling you “I love you” for the first time on the floor.

Receiving your drunk texts and just knowing. 

The two of us have hit more bumps in the road,

Skirted more obstacles than we can count.

Haunted by exes and tested by family,

Somehow we made it somewhere amazing.

I still get sad sometimes, choked on girls from your past,

And you still make mistakes, trusting everyone but me.

Don’t you think after six years together, 

You should know that I’m never wrong?

Even so, we prevail, and I love every single second of it.

Almost as much as I love every single molecule of you.