just another Poetry Blog™

she/her | 🏳️‍🌈 a girl with too many thoughts

[poetryfrommynotesapp]

she had a way of pushing me away when I needed her most

and pulling me back in when she needed somebody to care

she was like an ocean wave, the kind that takes the sand from underneath you and knocks you to the ground

and on the bad days, she would pull you in to the water and leave you struggling to escape the tide

I think deep down I knew that she would drag me down with her

but I continued to stand with my toes in the water

because I knew that every time she pulled away from me, she would eventually come back

[poetryfrommynotesapp]

she had a way of pushing me away when I needed her most

and pulling me back in when she needed somebody to care

she was like an ocean wave, the kind that takes the sand from underneath you and knocks you to the ground

and on the bad days, she would pull you in to the water and leave you struggling to escape the tide

I think deep down I knew that she would drag me down with her

but I continued to stand with my toes in the water

because I knew that every time she pulled away from me, she would eventually come back

[poetryfrommynotesapp]

golden hour has a funny way of suspending time

wedged right in between day and night, it serves as a beginning and an ending

while it transforms the sky into an array of light and beauty

the girl I loved in middle school

shared my love for the way the sky transformed

the days when we would get ice cream and watch the sky from the top of the playground were the days when my love for her felt the most infinite

looking at her face in this light, the way the sun hit her skin and danced across each of the freckles on her nose

I had no choice but to love her

even though everything in me was saying that I shouldn’t

but that’s the thing about the sun

you can’t stop it from rising every morning

or departing from the sky each evening

and even when you can’t see it glowing above you in the sky, or feels it’s warmth on your skin

it’s still there

as much as I tried to ignore my love for her

I couldn’t

I felt it every time I looked at her, every time I thought of her, every time I heard her voice

and even when I pretended I didn’t

I loved her more than anything in the world

our little moments in the golden sunlight meant more to me than anyone could have known

and even though the sun would soon set and we would soon have to go home

I knew that there was no way that my body could forget how the sun felt on my skin or how the way she looked at me made made me love her in a way that I’d never thought I’d love another girl

there are some things that you just know

and on those nights the only things I was certain of

was that the sun would eventually set, and that it would rise again the next morning

and that I loved her

[poetryfrommynotesapp]

“and that’s why you love me, right?”

the words hung in the quiet night air for a moment

muffled by the snow and the sounds of our feet hitting the ground

“yep”

the word escaped my lips and evaporated into the frozen air faster than I could think about it

I realized that I have done something terrible

I told a lie that resulted in a false sense of hope, of comfort, of warmth

I gave her a blanket even though sooner or later I will have to take it back and leave her to fight the cold without it

because I knew deep down in my heart

I didn’t love her

It just wasn’t that easy

how was I supposed to love her when I couldn’t even love myself?

⁃ february 14th, 2019

[poetryfrommynotesapp]

I stood in the shower long after the water turned cold that night

I let it run down my back, sending shivers down my spine and leaving my lips blue and my skin covered in goosebumps

but I didn’t even seem to notice the cold

the only thought that I could retrieve from the fog that surrounded my mind was

“I’m really about to do this”

it’s not like I thought she was not going to be ok with it

I knew deep down that coming out to one of my best friends wasn’t going to be a big deal

she would hug me and tell me that it’s cool and we would move on

but it wasn’t the idea of telling someone else that scared me

honestly it was just admitting it to myself

it was looking at myself and saying “I like girls, and that’s ok”

the thought of all the nights I spent trying to spit out those words, with tears running down my cheeks

scared me more than any reaction another person could have to me telling them

just admitting to myself that I liked girls was one of the most difficult things that I ever had to do

denial was a state of mind that I felt uncomfortably at home in

being honest with myself just didn’t feel like an option

I couldn’t make myself face the truth, because I didn’t exactly know what the truth was

loving girls was a feeling that I was terrified of

so much so that I would push it so deep down into my brain that it felt like it wasn’t there in the first place

the truth would have to stay locked away, because I simply wasn’t ready to face it

I didn’t want to love girls

at thirteen years old I preferred to giggle with my friends about boys at school, instead of coming to terms with the fact that I would chose the girl laying next to me on my bedroom floor over one of those boys any day

loving girls was messy, complicated, and most importantly not what girls my age were supposed to do

but that night was my breaking point

there are only so many secrets you can hold inside of you before you shatter

there’s only so much emotion that your body can contain

and there’s only so long that you can deny who you are before you have to come to terms with it

that night was the first time I told anyone I was gay

and, just as expected, she accepted me 100%

but it took a while longer before I was able to accept myself

so that night, after she went home

and I was left shaking with a strange mixture of nerves and relief

I looked in the mirror and I told myself something

something that would stick with me for months

twelve words that made the journey to learning to love myself a little easier

“I love girls

and maybe someday, I will be ok with that”

- if only I could go back and tell myself that I would be ok in the end

[poetryfrommynotesapp]

on the night of my grade eight christmas dance, she practically radiated light

the night was already a blur of christmas lights, cheap perfume, and loud music

exactly what you would expect from a typical middle school dance

but she was far from your typical thirteen year old girl

at least that’s what she was for me

she was the kind of girl that would take you by surprise

you never knew what to expect from her

you could listen to her talk for a thousands hours and never notice the way that her voice captured each of her emotions

I could spend every second of every day with her and still find out new things about her that made me love her even more

so after about an hour of singing at the top of our lungs, and feeling on top of the world

the song changed to something a little slower, and she grabbed my hand

and at first, I didn’t think much of it

but that didn’t last long

because she took my other hand

and looked at me

and I began to feel that way again

the way I always did when she looked at me

and for me, in that moment

time stopped.

all I could feel was her fingers intertwined with mine, as we stood in the middle of the gym floor

we were slowly swaying back and forth, and I couldn’t stop staring at her

the whole world was a blur of multicoloured lights, slow music, and her

it felt like we were in a whole other universe, one made just for us

a place where me and her could just exist for a moment

a place where the looks and whispers couldn’t hurt us

where we were safe from everyone and everything, including our own thoughts

she was everything in that moment

everything I wanted, everything I needed

everything real in a world of make-believe

but also she was everything that was forbidden to me

because as much I would have liked to believe, our little moments couldn’t last forever

we could never have, we could never be who I wanted us to be

happy endings like that couldn’t exist for us

at one point I needed to let go of her hands and walk away and pretend like she didn’t mean the world to me

because as much as I loved her, there simply wasn’t a place for us in the real world

so as soon as the song ended

I let go of her hand, and in my head I silently said goodbye

not because I wanted to, but because I felt as though I didn’t have another choice

they say that good things don’t last forever

and if that is true, our love was over before it even begun

⁃ if I could go back, I would have held on for just a while longer.

[poetryfrommynotesapp]

“so do you like anyone?”

she asked me one night during a sleepover

I didn’t say anything at first, mostly because I didn’t know what to say

if it was anyone else asking, I would have probably mumbled the name of a boy in our class who played basketball and smelled too much like axe body spray

or maybe I would say it was the boy in our grade who had nice hair but always picked on the younger kids in the hallways

not because I liked any of those guys, but because if I don’t say something they would probably wonder why

and I wasn’t at a place in my life when I could afford to have them question me

but this time it was different

because I knew I couldn’t just say the name of some boy

because she would know I was lying

but I also knew that I couldn’t tell her who I really liked

because I didn’t know if she could handle the truth

“I don’t really know” I said quietly after a few seconds

I avoided looking directly at her, I felt as if she could look into my eyes she would know that I was lying to her

“well you must like someone!” she said

it was so hard to not just tell her

but what did she want me to say?

was I really supposed to just look her in the eyes and say “i think you know who it is”

“have you not noticed the way I look at you when you’re across the room? how my words stumble and my face flushes when you talk to me? how I stay up with you and listen to you problems at 3am, long after everyone else has fallen asleep? how no matter what it comes down to, I would chose you and I will keep choosing you no matter how much it hurts??”

it’s not that easy

so instead just said nothing

⁃ there some secrets that we feel are too big to tell anyone. at 13 this was one of them.

[poetryfrommynotesapp]

growing up as a gay kid in a small town oftentimes is accompanied with the feeling of being alone

and I don’t mean alone like having no one to slow dance with at middle school dances and no one to hold hands with while walking down the hallways

but I’ve felt that too

but right now I’m talking about the other kind of loneliness

the kind that makes you feel like you’re the only one who feels the way you do

the only one who is going through what you’re going through

the kind that makes you feel alone in a crowded room

it’s the kind of loneliness that made me pretend to like that boy in seventh grade

the kind that forced me to laugh along with my “friends” when they called the girl with short hair at the mall a dyke

the kind that made me want to be someone I wasn’t

and the more I changed myself to fit in the stronger it grew

it wasn’t just loneliness anymore, it was an overwhelming sadness that felt infinite

I wasn’t who I was before and that scared me more than anything

I was a girl who liked girls, a girl who just couldn’t be normal, a girl who felt alone in the world

but I wasn’t

and it took me a while to learn that, the feeling of not being alone was so foreign to me, that I barely noticed feeling it at first

at first it came in the form of the two women laughing and holding hands at the grocery store

in the pride sticker my eight grade teacher put on his classroom door

in short films on youtube, and songs sung by underground artists

but it grew to be more than that

it began to come in the form of new friends in high school who were not afraid to admit that they weren’t like everyone else

in the first pride parade I attended, where I cried my eyes out but didn’t exactly know why

in the “love is love” button a stranger gave me at a rainbow peace march

in the acceptance of my friends, and the community online I now find myself in

it came in the form of a friend of mine telling me “you know, you don’t have to be who they want you to be”

it took a lot of growing and being honest with myself but I’ve made it

I’ve realized that this kind of loneliness can be strong, but I could be stronger

-no matter how lonely you feel, you are not alone

[poetryfrommynotesapp]

“you just may be my best friend”

I whispered to her in the dark

she smiled and turned to look at me

“well don’t tell anyone else but you may be mine too”

and I knew I wouldn’t

and it wasn’t then, it had revealed itself to me so many times before this

but that was a night when I looked at her with a thousand words locked in my eyes that couldn’t escape my lips

“you make everything better”

“I never thought I would feel this way”

“I think I’m in love with you”

a million secrets that could be spilled in a single sentence

but I think we both knew that this wasn’t our time

we were so young, so inexperienced, not knowing our place in the world but feeling like we finally understood it

so we just laughed

and she turned away from me and shortly after that she fell asleep

but I didn’t

I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night

and after that night she continued to chase after boys and I continued to look at her with all of the love in the world in my eyes

and that was it

maybe someday we would find our way, maybe someday we could say more than we had the words to say that cold october night

maybe one day we would meet again and I could tell her everything and she could tell me what I’ve wondered now for so many years

but it wasn’t going to be then

⁃ we were only thirteen, and at thirteen all I knew was that girls weren’t supposed to fall in love with other girls