It's been a year since I lost my best friend and I've finally realized now that I will never get him back. It's time to fully move on - sometimes, things don't come full circle. Sometimes, God's timeline for your life is vastly different than your own. Do you know that I completely stopped writing poetry while I was with him? He cocooned me somehow.
So in this spirit, I present to you the only poem I ever wrote about him:
I Will Keep You, Forever, In This Poem
I promised I wouldn’t write a poem about
you
but
I got drunk and waded through your old voicemails.
I wasn’t strong enough to
face them
on my own. With whiskey-hot veins, I
listen to your bullshit.
You coo to me from the past.
Your voice is soft and vulnerable, filled with
tenderness.
I want to crawl through the earpiece and hit you.
Call you on your bluffs
your dishonesty
these false futures
and lies of love
scream and yell and
interrupt you:
“Here is proof that you loved me, spoken from
the same lips that pressed and fluttered,
moth-like,
against my skin at night.”
If I could, I would leave a message for my future self.
No,
not a message.
A warning -
“Prepare yourself, girl.
He’s about to destroy you,
Wake up in the middle of the night to realize
he doesn’t love you, he's no longer
drawn to you.
drawn to you.
Move to kiss the back of your neck but stops.
He will cocoon you.
He will swaddle you in love and then flee you.
He will leave your heart tangled around something that
never existed -
Just a smashed mosquito with your own blood in it.
Prepare.”
Prepare.”
But now, all I do is listen.
I delete them one by one.
They are crumpled love letters in a wastebasket
that you couldn’t quite get right -
Just practice for the
next one.
