when i was younger i was afraid of my kitchen window.
afraid i’d see someone from the past just standing on the outside.
now i’m afraid to look through the windows of my eyes
afraid i’ll see the present me just trapped inside.
when i was younger i was afraid of my kitchen window.
afraid i’d see someone from the past just standing on the outside.
now i’m afraid to look through the windows of my eyes
afraid i’ll see the present me just trapped inside.
and yet,
no matter how versatile,
how much I changed
the rhythm of the song
that I was dancing to, I
still could attract your
attention as if it were
the first time.
we were the grand scheme of a daydream.
just like two criminals hunting in the night for their prey,
we wished and hoped and fantasized and overcompensated
for a future that we knew could never be ours.
for a time that we knew would freeze us,
please don’t remind me.
about the times, at 7 in the morning, whenever you looked at me and we both just knew that this would be it. when we went on a quest to find our own happiness and found it between the pages of books and nestled in those projected film scenes whenever everything goes quiet, the composer doesn’t remember what he was playing, or the characters
need time.
there’s always going to be a part of me that knew you could make it out of here.
but don’t remind me.
I have finally forgotten the sound of your voice,
and afternoons when you promised me that it was us or no one.
and notebooks where you put your initials next to T.S. Eliot’s,
don’t remind me.
I remember when we were little and we’d color our nails with pencil markings.
The familiar wince that would follow the squeak of the erase gliding across the smooth surface as we tried to get rid of the evidence. Uncomfortable.
It kinda looked like,
we were erasing time, erasing the blackness of age in the form of graphite,
erasing the versions of us that we couldn’t bear for anyone else to see.
it kinda looked like,
we were speeding through time with candy in our brains and hope in our hearts, the city had it out for us, –
we were our own best friend,
I don’t know about you but I wished we’d focused more on that feeling,
uncomfortable.
We made memories out of TV shows that premiered deep within the crevices of our imagination, shows that would heal us to it’s best extent,
shows that kept the car running, our hearts beating,
we made kings and queens out of the silence, invited the darkness as our audience, we wandered aimlessly in the luminescence of 6am and broke our own hearts on empty hapless Wednesday afternoons.
uncomfortable.
I seem to look for you in all the places that I told myself I never would.
Every scent, every sound, every song, you, you, you.
In noisy crowds that I see your face in,
in the eerie silence of my lounge at 4am,
in photographs that still look like us,
in the 3 minute long guitar solos from songs
I haven’t heard in 3 years now,
songs I don’t remember the name of,
songs I don’t want to,
there you are.
Sitting, waiting, listening, resting loudly,
nothing.
And it floods me.
Instantly,
I’m reminded of the way smiles etched themselves like little
stories at the corners of your lips, never formed. Incomplete
autobiographies and so unfair –
The way that your name flows from me like honey and
caramel, easy easy easy,
our natural charisma finding each others’ paths by accident.
Easy.
The way you like your words to mean something,
there’s a pause between your answers,
your sentences.
I’m reminded of, especially, my favorite sound,
the sound of conversations that we never knew how to finish
We’d stay on the phone knowing that sleep was creeping into us,
begging us for a goodnight kiss that we,
instead, gave to each other,
easy.
I’m an imitation of myself
for you and it’s not even
pretty. Every summer that
I couldn’t have you is
somehow here, again, just
to see if everything is
okay and I suppose that
it is but the night time
still hurts, it still hurts
more than I want it
to.
Every winter you
never had a chance
to love is resting in
your heart and you
still hate yourself.
You create a world for us
in these records and then
bail out on me when the
music gets too loud. I can’t
un-hear the melody, I cannot
change the inspiration
that you brought to my heart.
Everything about you changed
who I am, totally.
There are pieces of me I thought
were me and turned out to
only be you. I find it
comforting.
I’ve always believed in simple
things; simple meanings. I love
everything that
you are.
Your own sadness resonates
in my heart, a season that
I cannot change. You think
you don’t still have your
“good days” but the evidence
is still there. Magic rests in
your existence, the very
presence of goodness
knows your impact.
I cannot make you believe
that you are everything that
you are, even if I know that
you crafted
the stars.
Versions of us are in my
notebooks. Pieces of you
that I left strewn along like
I was dragging you through
the depths of hell. God, what
it’s like to be young- to have
absolutely nothing and
everyone thinks that you
have everything. But really
it’s only a false sense of
confidence. And each other,
but barely even that. We
try, we try and we write but
for what? For you? For her?
For our selfish selves?
We write.
But only to satiate our souls
even a little.
Still.
We write.