waves crashing on our hometown shore

i think i’ve always missed something, every second i’ve been alive.

when i was six my mother cast me into the hallway and told me she didn’t love me and i grasped onto that feeling and carried it everywhere i went. i thought that i was honestly a bit silly to think that someone was required to love me, that i was worth the effort. there were checkboxes. i missed when there wasn’t a to-do list so that your mom made you food, but that would just have to be my life. clattering pots and pans in the next room gave me nightmares but by that point i'd been taught not to run to dad.

when i was ten the daylight was hollow and i told myself people were dying as if that would trick me into crawling out of this darkness. my cousin told me she was depressed because she wanted to go to the park and i remember thinking she didn’t know what that word really meant because all i ever wanted was to know someone again. to touch someone’s skin without fear of death, to breathe someone’s air without suffocation. i wanted to disappear from the cruel existence and i wanted to live like the movies told me i would. for a moment--perhaps a few years--i forgot about faith, tossed it aside: no benevolent god would save people from this neverending massacre.

when i was twelve i got heartbroken and i told myself i would never be the same, like i had forgotten my existential crises of two years prior. pre-teen priorities, i guess. my friends called me crazy. i said i was in a wild sort of love that nobody could catch. the stories i made up in my free time were mere daydreams that never came true, because he was never in love, he was looking out the window--i was trying to catch a glimpse of someone who i'd never get.

when i was thirteen my lamplight was dim and my soul was aching to exist. on the darkest night of the year i spent the sunset with a razor in my hand, glanced at the clock and thought it was too early in the day to want to die this much. i went to school the next day and i said i was in love with a girl as if she could fix the hole in my heart, mend the part of me that was ripped to shreds. she never bothered to remember my name. when i got home i just sighed and wondered if there was anything worth sitting down for, or if i could just lay down and fall asleep for eternity instead.

now i’m fourteen and there’s still a part of me that wants to pick up the razor but i tell myself that there are better things to miss than my pain. i'd never burden you with my neverending worries, all the memories i hide behind stained glass. the little girl inside me begs to not ward off the only good thing we have. i write my thoughts out so that maybe i’ll resist the urge to miss you more than i do already, tell myself i need you less than the empty expanse of a page. but i’ll always need you, i think i’ll always miss you until i can wake up and touch your face.

i think i’ll always miss something, every second i’ll be alive.

at some point we diverged in a wood

just like that old robert frost poem we had to read in fifth grade—

we laughed about it together and made fun of its obviousness

because we were eleven and we were smarter than that.

you were the kind to write me a half-hearted thank-you card for your birthday present

but hug me when you saw me the next day at school

because writing was stupid when we could talk for hours.


but now i’m here and we haven’t talked in four years—

i think poetry is supposed to be a little obvious

because life is too subtle for me now,

i still have that thank-you card and i don’t remember what you said the next day,

we didn’t write it down, my memory is failing me,


and i read that frost poem and think of you and i.

is it bad that i want my hair spread out on your pillow, that i need your face close to mine? i’d run my hand down your face like a waterfall, kiss you where it hurts. to exist beside you, that’s all i’ll ever wish for on shooting stars.

Spoiler

written for the poetry contest, but ended up not fitting the prompt

i promised my friends i wouldn't get hurt again, 

my lies blurring into the fog on the horizon

that clouded the night i told you i loved you. 

they shook their heads and all collectively said

that once again i might as well be throwing my heart

into the fire, willingly watching the sparks engulf

any chance i ever had at surviving. 

i think i tried to convince myself that that was true, 

spent midnights worrying, daytimes trying to keep myself afloat,

drowning in our endless love. at some point i had to admit

that maybe my friends might have been wrong, 

because no love that quenches your thirst so easily

could possibly tear you to pieces. 

there’s a beach in our hometown

and that’s proof that we were meant to be

because kissing you felt like

how the surf crashes onto the sand during high tide,

the moment you look up to the sky at sunset

all those watercolor moments, all those pencil-smudged seconds

and holding you in my arms is

the way i tossed sand out to the sea and

all the yearning i had bottled up when we drew our names

with a stick that a seagull left.

darling, it was meant to be. we were meant to be.

glowing red on the pavement from the neon lights

i’m by your side and it’s cold out here but

i don’t think i care very much. your lips were on mine

just a second ago and my thoughts flickered pink.

your skin is too soft for existence. you’re velvet,

valuable, irreplacable,

i could sit here and trace hearts on your cheek for days.

there’s laughter from the other side of the deck—

but i just look into your eyes. lay my head on your chest.

can’t care what anyone else is talking about when your

irises seem to gleam green and blue at my touch.

you sparkle purple, my love. i think i glitter yellow when you enter the room.

oh god i might just break without you

winter is melancholia and i drink coffee to ward it away

but i think it keeps coming back to be fed

because it’s a bit lonely and i’m the only one there

to suffer with it.

they say misery begets company but it’s been a while

since i wanted to cry with someone,

i prefer it alone because then i’m not aware

of how ugly i get, it’s not eyeliner dripping down my face,

it’s my screwed up eyelids and my half-open mouth

i can’t make it sound elegant, i’m sorry,

maybe that’s why i sob alone and hold my tears till i get home

i feel as though i might be a bit too numb for existence,
carelessness threads through my veins, i would tell you i'm fine
but i don't think i can choke the words out long enough to make it count.
my watercolored sleeves speak for themselves anyways.

popcorn ceilings used to bother me, all those cemented scars
but i think we might have something in common, i run my hand along
the walls like she does my face and i assume it must feel the same--
rough and stony; my mouth gives no indication of my agony.

something is pounding in my head though i can't seem to give it a name,
perhaps it's everyone i've ever left, those abandoned gravestones, that untrimmed ivy.
the love letters left on my desk haunt me as i pass, i wonder of
the people i touched once, what do they think of me? do they see me in the halls and scoff?

winter chill is setting in and i am bundled up safe and warm--we might not get the chance to exist in the same room for a few days but you're here, you're always in my heart, love. i catch glimpses of a newfound future in my dreams, stained glass newly coloring my visions like i could finally live a life free of the vines tying my wrists. you have brought me such a gift, the light i needed.

there are christmas lights up at my neighbor's house. i look at them and wonder why anyone would risk the knots in their neck, the pain in their shoulders. for tradition? for the kids? but then i see the wife walk outside, i see her eyes glitter like she's back in minnesota--i look at her and i think that i'd put up christmas lights for you.

i think i find comfort in your details, the way you brush your hand against mine, the way you squeeze tighter when you have to leave. you've been embroidered so carefully into my skin, clearer than the running stitch my grandmother taught me as a child. 

is it possible to have the most intoxicating love and the most chilling pain coursing through your veins at once? my hands are shaking and i can't tell if the black cloud is back or i just kissed the love of my life. it's all real, it's all becoming more real, i pace around the piles on the floor and figure out a way to text you back. somehow my existence amounts to more than just words on a page and my bronchioles are becoming shallower by each breath i take. my neck has whipped around one too many times to see your face--you have punctured my aorta in the most beautiful way, i might bleed out from this feeling but my plasma will be on your hands. i'll always be with you, i suppose. 

hi, do i know you?

you’re holed up in your room all the time and i wish i could say i know your friends’ names but i don’t. saturday mornings watching you on the field aren’t enough, i think. look at our home videos, look at us. you were so tiny. i was so dramatic. now your entire life fits into your backpack and i’m jealous. i wonder if you can tell i’m carrying this weight in my shoulders. you don’t act like it.

what’s your name?

yes i know you’re getting good grades. you always will. you get good grades and an ipad and a better version of our parents. i was ten when they decided that they wouldn’t hit their kids. i don’t think i was still a kid by then. i’m guilty for being envious of someone who hasn’t had the chance to fall from grace—you have never lived life before, i was supposed to be your guiding light.

how did we meet?

i’m sorry i disappear and i’m sorry you have to hear shouting. clattering pans used to scare me, but god, you’ve gotten used to them. you learned not to flinch at the slam of a door when you were six and i’d get you out of here if you asked. hell, i’m waiting for you to ask, waiting for you to wake up from this haze. i was disillusioned too.

sorry, i don’t remember.

you’ll never know my life before you and you’ll never know the secrets i hide in my dresser drawer. you used to snoop in there when i was away but i don’t think you care enough for that anymore. who could blame you, with an older sister like me, one who failed to show you the world before it bit at your pride.

what have you done to me? 

i once worshipped you like the moon does the sun and every day was tinted with pink. i told you that you meant more to me than persephone does to hades, and you looked over and nodded complacently. i earned your trust with compliments, i earned an invite to the birthday party, a reminder i was more than just a human. 

now i see blond hair and have a panic attack just like i did the night i left. i remember the stars seemed a bit brighter in the sky and i thought about how they lived there just like i did in your mind. i was always there, but i think during the day you took me for granted. wrote poetry, pretended i got over it, but your long blond hair haunts me and i wish it didn't. i spent too long walking behind you, too long looking at the back of your head.

you live in a place in my mind i don't see too often anymore. sometimes i wonder of your life in pages though i know your experience will never live up to what i've dreamed on paper. i think my imagination will have to live with the absence of a concrete answer.

i don’t have a role model

and i don’t think i ever will

because you taught me not to look up to celebrities

and i never was obsessed with hemingway

but everyone in the room looks up to their parents

yet i’ve always looked down at you.

there is a mug full of paintbrushes on my nightstand

and all of them are mine, remnants of someone

who said she'd do something great. my years-old fingerprints 

are printed on the handles. i don't remember when i stopped. 

sketchbook upon sketchbook piled up on my bookshelf,

my memory is failing me--how did i ever think that doodles would 

become my future? 

it makes me wonder if there is something i love right now

that will slip between my fingers without notice, disappear

before i get the chance to say goodbye. art disillusioned me,

has poetry done the same? will i be flipping through these notebooks in years to come

and scoffing at my confidence?