Every day I fight the urge to
wish I’d never met you.
What good would that do,
I wonder,
as I toss our memories like stones
over my shoulder.
I leave a trail behind me
in the wake of our destruction,
and then I light it all on fire.
Burn, baby, burn…
when there is nothing left,
it will still be too much.
Christmas Day
In the weeks and months after we met,
every morning felt like Christmas Day.
I know that’s a cliche,
but I don’t care.
That’s how I felt,
and I am done apologizing for it.
There is no reason to be sorry
for being happy.
That’s just a learned condition
passed down from miserable people
who don’t know the joy of waking up and
anticipating what the day will hold.
You taught me that
without even trying,
without even realizing.
And I know you felt the same,
on the other side of town,
reluctant to say goodnight,
but knowing it would bring us closer to
another day spent discovering each other.
But
you squandered it,
that special feeling;
acted like Christmas happens every day and
doesn’t need to be appreciated.
You ruined that feeling for both of us,
and now we are those miserable people,
the ones who forget that each day with someone you love
is a gift,
something to be unwrapped slowly and
treated with care.
I woke up with that feeling this morning,
between the haze of dreams and consciousness.
I had missed it,
and I savored it until
I was too awake to fool myself anymore.
Christmas is over;
it’s June.
My bed is empty;
you are gone.
-L.R.Y.
(6/20/17)
All work and no play
Writing speeds up time,
but it always brings me back to you.
Our pain is fodder for my brain.
I use words to dissect,
but everything is still a mess.
Who we were can’t be reclaimed.
Every turn is left,
so round and round we go.
There’s no going back when we never had a home.
-L.R.Y.
(5/24/17)
Seasonal schism
We met in autumn.
You weren’t who I thought you’d be,
and your eyes felt like home.
We grew in winter.
While snow fell and my brother died,
I loved you too much.
We splinter in spring.
I need pieces you cannot give,
and now there’s only silence.
-L.R.Y.
(5/16/17)
Homesick
I have heard you can’t make homes
out of human beings
but
you’ve become mine,
even when we have
no place to claim as ours,
and now the thought of leaving you
feels like
the homesickness I remember
from my childhood.
There are weights tied to my ankles
as I try to walk away,
a sentimentality that threatens
to break me clear in two.
But
you have already broken me,
because you couldn’t come to terms
with how to fix yourself.
-L.R.Y.
(4/21/17)
Trigger
There are now months
between the times that you touch
me the way that we used to,
but I still take the pills
that keep me empty inside;
I don’t want cells to divide
and tether me here
to these stories I tell
myself to stay calm.
Before the storm,
you are always too busy
to give shelter.
You take
too long to deliberate
and I am adrift,
just like all the times before.
-L.R.Y.
(4/16/17)
Interview prep
I sit on the barbershop couch
and marvel at the irony of it all,
listening to you make small talk
like it is nothing,
like it is natural.
I’m not used to that,
and I absorb the cadence of your voice
in between songs on the stereo.
It was proposed that I had
engineered this interview just to
spruce you up a bit,
but I am slowly realizing
love might mean
not wanting to change someone,
not even the things I used to pick apart.
I wonder how long that lasts;
I wonder if I will have time to find out.
-L.R.Y.
(1/14/16)
