literature

what I forgot to say

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Literature Text

to the girl who lives like a hurricane:
don’t expect to tell me about
your addiction to self-harm and
Nyquil and have me smile;
although, as I shiver from lakewater
and things less tangible, I seem to
acquire a talent for glossing over the list
of things I need to tell you--

your boyfriend
is an asshole. California does not
begin and end in a tiny town where
people operate like clockwork around
the same happy working song. I am not
a fountain of wisdom, and, to be honest,
I can barely understand you over the
thunderstorms in my own brain.
you are beautiful and you are
wrong.

.

to the girl I left back in time:
purpose is not a given. I am
the same teenage angst who used
to wear too much eyeliner and
complain about my future
as I’d foretold it-- loveless and whiny,
like me. I am her plus a few more
self destructions and minus
a lot more days to continue striving
alongside you for simple goals and
simple friends and simple memories
I won’t remember.

.

to the girl who sees the world in me:
I’m sorry. it always seems safe to
start off with that. ours is
a back and forth necessity; a
breathing, wanting struggle between
two people who forgot how to decipher
their own heartbeats, and I’m sorry
your parents don’t believe in you. I’m sorry
you’re stuck rewriting your life, I’m sorry
you’ve mistaken me as a seaside town
worth anchoring down in, and I’m sorry
you weren’t there when
I needed you.

.

to the boy who reminded me I was blind:
I forgive you, but not enough
to pardon myself of the very same crimes
that plucked me feather by feather, raw,
as though I were an angel being punished
for my original sin.

you and I are more similar than
I should like to admit.
the terrors I went through were always
tinged with blue, cyan, cerulean; the
watery memory of stories you’d told me
about living on the brink of death and
growing up old and hiding every single
thing that could remotely resemble a weakness.
even now, as my hands shake, I am reminded
of the way you bared me to my brittle bones
and watched me tremble, like the
deforestation of a flower in its first bloom
was something special. and maybe
it was in that moment I began to love you,
because all I ever wanted was to be

special.

.

to the boy on the other side of the mirror:
I wish you were real for me. I want
to know you vulnerable, and see
the kind of tears you cry. I want
you to talk to me about school crushes
and depression and expectations; I want to know
what keeps you up at night and what effects
caffeine addiction has on a writer’s addled brain.
I want for once to talk to you without apologizing for
everything I’ve ever been-- you are
the only person who’s seen every splintered
piece of me.
five people have invested in the timeshare that is my mind these past few weeks and wow there's a lot I haven't said but I guess that's what writing's for, haha, my passive aggression and deadends
© 2013 - 2024 intricately-ordinary
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infidelity's avatar
This is awesome. I don't have anything constructive to say about it, but I highly enjoyed reading it!