22 poems for (not) falling in love
is fall the season of love? maybe. this topic has been on my heart lately as one of the most widely romanticized seasons of the year is back. I think it's important to recognize the situations that have felt like they could be love... but turned out to be something else entirely.
here's a catalogue of short moments. feelings from situations that just...weren't.
situations, still, that taught me to fall in love with new things.
what follows is poems full of pain and the boys my affection could have been spent on--and pictures of things I fell in love with instead.
1. strawberries
strawberries are easy to fall in love with
when they're sweet
but so easily avoided when
they spend too long on the shelf
are you my strawberries?
too ripe
too ripe
2. brown eyes
I’ve loved brown eyes before but
yours seem to stay rooted in one spot
I try to show you a photograph
and turning back you’ve beat me to
my own irises
I wonder if they ever left
3. honeycomb boy
honeycomb boy
you are sweet
but you sting
you buzz and you buzz
but you don't know a thing
4. not write
I don’t want to write about you anymore
I don’t
I came here to not write
to not write about you and the way I can’t stop
can’t stop seeing you
seeing words
they live in your eyes, skin, smile
and I don’t want to think them anymore
5. art history
trying to get some art history
on this paper when
all I can waste my ink on is your
sweet mellow softness that
sounds so good in my notes, on the pages
that span the kohl lined eyes of pharaohs
who couldn’t seem to get anything done either, still
it’s your presence that I caught in the elevator
between the blue lines and red
margins of my uncertainty so
tell me, picasso
when will I ever learn
I lost my mind
in a predynastic tomb
and my head in ancient painted pottery
6. crossword
we were a crossword
black and white, we touch just once
should have used pencil
7. small
I wish you would give me a reason to write about you
but you don’t. you never do. you don’t care and
there's nothing that I can tell you because just to
leave you alone forever and disappear into the
floorboards would be enough for you i am
one with the wax sealant that washes over
my cedar, the sapling I have grown and
chopped from a tree of my very own
vulnerability, from footsteps I watch
and know you will never give me
a reason to sneak out of the
woodwork and admit how
you make me want to
take an axe to my
insensibility and
to say just how
impossibly
small I am
when
I see
you
8. uninterested
now I know
I’m not as special as I’ve
been made to believe
and you’re
not as interested
as you seemed
9. over
nothing is over, he said
nothing really “ends”
maybe he’s wrong if it’s all
in my head
10. icky
I had an icky feeling when I saw him
I remembered that in a long line of others
there was once him
he said I haven’t seen you in four years
he said I was such an artist, that
he’d read my poems he said
they are quite good
I said I sent you something six months ago
he laughed
he said, feel free to send anything to me
any time
he wore three different patterns and
I said, I like your coat
he said he wasn’t a minimalist and
he asked me what to say to
the others he hadn’t seen in 4 years I said
whatever you want
he makes the word guffaw seem like a real live comic book drawing
but gently
he walked away and took style with him
but I saw him
glancing at my body as we talked because
men never change
not even after 4 years
I had an icky feeling when I saw
his wedding photos, pristinely bohemian
an hour before
he said anything
11. pain
it sounds strange
coming out of my pen
I wouldn’t dare to say it
speak it, no
these lines they show
there’s times I loved you
and then there’s times I
12. hatchet
for once
I don’t want to talk about it
I don’t want to think about it
I’m done
and it’s about time
to bury the damn hatchet
13. circular logic
circular logic
round and round in a cycle of
oh no
and you’re the moon
pulling at the tide of my ocean
but I find it odd
how you only ever show up
on paper
14. fence
I fell off the fence
yesterday, in the rain
I made up my mind
as the storm rolled away
it took me a while
to figure it out
but it hurt more to sit
than to fall to the ground
15. honesty
I don't find it sweet and
I don't find it cute
how you lie
when you know
that I won’t like the truth
honesty,
honestly
say what you mean
I've woken up but
you still won't come clean
it was poetic
the way I was trapped
but I'm no longer lost
my mind found the map
I know how I feel and
I know what I'm worth
I don't have more time
and I won't waste more words
16. lying
I don't know how to tell you
that I know what I want
without boldfaced lying and,
while that is okay for some people
namely,
you
I am having trouble thinking
at all
17. brick
running into a brick wall
subtly screaming, yes
I am aware
that I'm an idiot
but so are you and man,
one day we are gonna get it
regret it
but now we shrug
because brick
is a good color on us
18. physics
in loving memory
of all the poetry I lost
to physics
when I hid you
between the pages of tangential velocity
and centripetal acceleration
where f=ma had a home
with my feelings
and my sprawling script overflowed, embodying
solids, liquids,
and the plasma
of my thoughts
in loving memory
of my universal gravitation
(Fg=Gm1m2/r2)
to words
and the confusion I'll never get back
19. bruises
bruises, I find
where once was just breath
bruises made bitter
and lighter
at length
bruises where footsteps
walked over my lungs
left the door open
and tracked in the mud
bruises where fingers
just skimmed shoulder blades
bruises where thumbprints once
whispered a name
bruises that never
were meant to be there
bruises for laughter
and seconds you cared
this can of worms
has been opened again, I’ve
barely been touched
but the bruises remain
20. black and white
it was always
black and white
with me,
with you
the way we moved
later
we would wonder
how it could've felt
in color
21. collateral damage
collateral damage, I
wasn't involved
it shouldn't have been
but somehow it was
22. my mind
I think
I lost my mind
for you
I think
it's what
you wanted, too
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