To all the boys that have loved me (assuming you really did)... Dear 16, The girl you loved four years ago only lives now in high school year books and love notes written on lined paper. Baby, we were brand new back then and I can never forget the way we broke eachother in, how we set eachothers souls in motion. We’re both exactly where I imagined we would be. You live in black and white instagram selfies with your chin angled upward. You live in between her legs- whoever she happens to be that weekend. I live in college textbooks and tear soaked pillow cases. I live in two part-time jobs and my mothers arms. Funny, we used to be so alike. It took me a while but I finally smile when I think of you. And even though we found ourselves in a storm, I’m still glad we were too dumb to notice the clouds forming. Dear 17, There are rose bushes planted outside my bedroom window. Sometimes, during a storm, the thorns hit the glass and I pretend its you knocking. I would open my window and let you fall onto my bed with the rain. Babe, just like the rain, you never fit into my plan. You were beautiful, eye opening, and so inconvenient. To this day, any pain you caused has been shadowed by the sheer wonder of knowing you. I can only hope that no other man will find this one small corner of my heart. I still keep it on reserve for you. I like it empty and hopeful, chipped and tattered. I play there sometimes, avoiding the broken nails and cracked tile. I imagine our life there. We’re confused and shaken but, darling, its perfect. Dear 18, I don’t blame you for any of it. I had a newfound freedom and thirst for the world. I was relentless, willing to strip myself down, lie naked in the ruins, if it meant realizing true love. I wanted, me and you, alone in a dark room. I wanted to be comfortable and afraid, to settle into your arms and then ponder escape. I wanted you to be bad, to turn your back on anything that said we were wrong for each other. I wanted to make mistakes- the kind of mistakes we couldn’t come back from and- my baby, my devil horned sweetheart- I don’t think I have. Sometimes, when I’m sitting in silence, I wonder what our mess meant to you. Do you look at your face and see my hands? Do you look at your life and hear my voice? Do you still hear me beckoning you out of the darkness? Dear 19, You’re hot. You’re the kind of hot that doesn’t take work. The kind of man I’m not afraid to be too loud in front of. The kind of man I don’t care to impress. The drunk driving, scruffy faced, high school dropout. The big strong man in my bed. My class clown. My punching bag. My torture toy. My ass smacking, beer drinking lover. I would have written you so differently when I was sixteen. You would have been my torn to pieces prince charming. The baggage bearing love of my life. All our rare intimate moments would have made me fall in love with you. I would have celebrated all your tiny milestones. But these days, I label you as the man I pass the days with. I limit our time and don’t return your calls. I’m no longer naive enough to think we are different. You are you and I am me and we aren’t going to change for anybody. Dear forever, I address you, not out of certainty that you exist, but so that I can end this poem looking forward. I pray that you are as fucked up as I am. I pray that you are writing your own poems about your own long haired, sweet talking, pink cheeked mistakes. If we meet, I pray that you point out pieces of me I couldn’t see before. That we share opinions and beliefs as certainly as we share a bed and a life together. I pray that the years we’ve spent apart don’t confuse us. And that my cynicism lifts easily at the sound of your voice. I pray you’re out there, that we’ll fit, that we can look back and understand.
