maybe i drove in the car knowing the brakes didn’t work. and the wind in my hair reminded me of july last year when i fell in love with you. but that wasn’t really love, was it? you were a firestorm and i pretended to like the heat. we danced in black and white and you never asked me for colour. i spent my summer thousands of miles away and i never stopped thinking of you. how were we to know? i wore you like a backpack and my steps only ever got heavier. that was never love. and i know you didn’t mean to hurt me. you were slow steps and grey kindness and i let it bury me. the flowers never grew again after you picked them all. the summer became fall and the sun didn’t rise as high and i didn’t see you for months. but you could’ve called. i waited by the phone for a text you never sent but deep down i knew. and i didn’t miss you as much as i though i would. but parts of me were left in that room and i wasn’t sure how to get them back without you. i held on because it was easier than admitting it was never real. and i knew a year ago what this would be but i still drove the car and waited for it to crash. and even when i was bleeding to death you never thought of me. and it was okay because i never really loved you. we were ashes by the mantlepiece and the wind blew us all away.
now it’s april and this time last year i was tying string to your words and wrapping it around my neck. i was happy to let you kill me, isn’t that sad? you could’ve turned me to dust and i would still have followed you with the winds. you were never perfect and maybe that’s why we fit like trouble. you were too much like me in the ways that i hated and i pretended that was what love was supposed to be. i want to be honest and say that i’m not angry at you. you never knew. you were maple syrup on burnt pancakes and i only saw the sweetness. you were kind in sunlight and i fell to your feet like moth to a flame. you were love in the way i imagined it and i drowned in a memory i created. it was foolish moments of weak bones and you watched me pick my scabs. i know now it was never real. but maybe there’ll be a day i know you again. you might tell me you missed me and you’ll say you thought of me, and i’ll try not to write poetry about it. you are sweet smile and i am sour liquor. in a dream you will say you love me and i will tell you it's too late.
remember july last year when i picked your words and wrote a poem about it? this is all i have left:
i loved you.
i am screaming it into the night sky and i don’t expect you to hear it, but deep down i hope you feel it. and if you think of the girl with buckled knees and shaky hands and remember july last year when my heart began to beat for you, i want you to know that now it beats on its own.
