by Katie Tyler
At 11pm you were out partying with a new brunette until suddenly you found yourself asking why she looks just like me.
1 am comes and your guilt roars back to life.
But then as 3am rolls around again, it's my phone that's ringing.
I realize I can't do this anymore.
I close my eyes and pretend you were nothing but a dream.
k.l.
temerate: to break a bond or binding promise
Beauty is in survival, not appearances
When people walk into a garden,
roses are the first thing to catch an eye.
I used to think I wanted to be a rose.
To be admired by everyone.
To be picked solely for the idea of love.
Unfortunately, roses die within a week after being cut from their bush.
Did you know pink freesias can survive two weeks after being cut from their mothering plant?
Why did I want to be a rose when I could be a pink freesia?
k.l.
Shlimazl
In every boy I meet,
I build up demons in my mind.
I create scenarios that would be too good to be true and then get disappointed when my knight and shining armor doesn’t come to my rescue.
I never trust any of them.
I always believe they are lying because I have yet to be proven wrong.
If they say they are only talking to you, you might as well assume there’s three others because that’s just what boys do.
If they say they love you,
see if taking your body off the table changes their mind.
I want to say all of the problems are because of me, but for once, it isn’t.
It’s this era.
k.l.
shlimazl: someone who is generally unlucky.
Gracie chérie
I remember when you asked me to describe life in two words.
Do you remember my answer?
Fucked up.
That was all I could say.
That was truly the only logical reply I could come up with on the spot.
Everything good is always taken away
and everything bad stays around to haunt us in our dreams.
There's truly nothing positive without a negative bond coming shortly behind,
but I guess that’s the beauty of science being brought into play.
We’re all supposed to smile and pretend our lives aren’t falling apart around us.
We’re all just fucked up people in a fucked-up world.
k.l.
Gracie chérie: Gracie Darlin’
Morosis
You asked if I was okay.
The answer is no.
No, I'm not okay.
and no one notices.
No one even has the slightest clue,
or maybe they do
and they just really don't care.
I don’t know which is more pathetic.
k.l.
morosis: the stupidest of stupidities
It’s done with
Over
Completely destroyed
What more can I do
To fill this void?
k.l.
Free Falling
The window stood open
and all I had to do was jump,
but as I looked down
into the black pavement of the inevitable,
I realized
I had no need to end my life.
I am content with the peacefulness I have created
and loving you
helped me
love myself.
k.l.
On the Outside Looking In
Today I ran into one of our old friends.
She told me you’re doing good.
I learned that you made your dreams come true;
you’re a star quarterback now,
and apparently, you’ve never been happier.
Ironically, she told me you always ask her about me every time you happen to see
her on the streets.
She always gives you the same answer,
“She’s doing fine.”
“She’s living the best life!”
“She’s thriving!”
That’s definitely a lie
because I know I’m not doing fine.
I’m a hopeless wreck.
Not a night goes by that I don’t have the idea of falling asleep in your arms once again.
I think back to the scent of your after shave and only then do I find my eyes beginning to fall heavy.
On other nights I drink away my sorrows and my drunken mind finds a fix to keep you from my thoughts.
Sometimes I just have to picture your face and the way you’d stare at me when you told me you loved me.
One day, I hope my dreams come true too.
Until then I will continuously be in a rut of loving you
k.l.
Lovers to Strangers
We hated each other
then we became best friends
Secretly we fell in love
only to fall apart again
We were both too stubborn
to actually confess
I would have died for you
and I don’t know about the rest
Now it’s too late
We never actually went on a date
These days we can’t even look at each other
and sadly, I don’t know how to tell your mother
That the girl she once knew
got the short end of the blues
Both her son and I messed up our lives
but I guess for love, we were willing to sacrifice.
Moral of the story is:
You can’t go back to being just friends after falling in love. We all say it is possible but realistically it's painful.
k.l.
Joy
Your soul is with me
everywhere I go.
Laughing, crying, and judging
in hopes that this life is your own.
You were taken from me far too soon;
however, it was your choice to decide to go.
Even though I’m still breathing,
I will never have your amount of strength,
but that's something else you already know.
k.l.
Joy: Alyssa Joy
Gracie Chérie, Mon Poém Pour Toi
Each morning,
I awake
puffed eyes
sore throat
searching for some kind of escape.
You were my everything.
You were my light in all of my darkness.
You made me believe I would be okay.
I thanked God the day you entered my life
and I think I forgot to keep thanking Him for you
which is why you were taken from me so soon.
I know I could’ve done better.
I know I could’ve tried more.
I could’ve given you all of the attention you deserved.
I know I could’ve done a million things differently.
I regret it all so much.
For certain though, I know I loved you with all of my heart
and the love I have for you will never change.
Until I can find a common ground on begging for your forgiveness
and mourning your loss,
I will be content with my morning routine.
k.l.
Ashtray
You smoked cigarettes
I did not.
You told me your life story
I couldn’t believe how intriguing it was.
You made me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry.
You held onto me and I never thought I’d see the day where you’d let me go.
You left me on a cold December night,
and now all I do is wait around for you to come home.
I miss you in the evenings
just like I miss the sno
w.
Today, I lit a cigarette
but I guess that’s just another thing you’ll never know.
k.l.
On that cold winter morning, I looked you straight in the eye before saying “believe me, I don’t love you anymore.”
If you had ever truly loved me, you would've seen that was the biggest lie I have ever told.
k.l.
Subsiding
I don’t really want to cry anymore.
I mean I know that the pain is still there,
and if I start thinking about you too much,
my body will begin to let the tears build up,
but at the same time there are these moments that I am okay
and I forget that I am sad.
I feel like that's the place I want to reside in right now,
but I don't know how to stay there.
k.l.
subsiding: become less intense, violent, or severe.
Adaptations
Trust me when I say I want to reach out to you.
I see your pain.
I see the distraught captured in your snapchat stories.
I see all of your confusion by the posts you share
and the pictures you like.
I want to be the person you can come to
in the idea that I'll help ease your agony
but I can’t be.
I’ve already tried being that person,
and you pushed her away.
k.l.
Simulacrum
In the idea of love,
we cease to see
how naturally we let ourselves go,
but if walls could talk
and the world became still
it’d be easy to prove
illusions never turn into something real.
This is where our hearts get broke.
k.l.
simulacrum: an image or representation of someone or something
Unknown Casualties
You are my crush
that will never be
because even though we tried,
we could never succeed
k.l.
Love me with your last breath
Love me until you cannot love me anymore
Love me like you’ve never loved anyone else in this life time
For the love of God, please just love me
k.l.
Unexplained Actuality
A year after the cycle of what was us
I finally realized
it’s not the person you miss the most,
it’s the routine of the love you thought you two shared.
k.l.
actuality: actual existence
A Thousand Pieces of Me
I fall in love with the idea of being in love
and honestly, I cannot think of a worse habit.
k.l.
Bliss
There are times in our lives
that we don’t get everything we want
It’s a given
but what they don’t warn us about
is that sometimes life gives us a simple taste of things
just so that we can feel how good it would be
then the tables are turned and we are forced to spend the rest of our lives
hoping to find something relatively as sweet
to compare to that tiny sample
In this case, I wish I had known that you were mine
k.l.
Letter to Myself….
Dear 15-year-old me,
You've always liked him. Just admit it to yourself and quit denying it when everyone asks. You might not believe me, but it's the way your eyes shine their brightest when someone says his name. Or it's possibly the way you look away as quickly as you can when you catch him looking at you.
He's not being rude, but he's in the phase of awkwardness right now and doesn't know if he's allowed to date a girl like you. He's always known you as the girl he could tell everything to, but now he sees you as more and it's bothering him. He just doesn't know what to do about it, and believe me when I say, he’s just as scared as you are.
March up to him and tell him you'd like him to take you on a date next Saturday night. Let him figure out that cliques don't matter, and stereotypes are invalid and that yes, he is allowed to date you because you are you and you are not like the rest. Make the first move if you have to. He would like it. He'll even be relieved.
When he gets his drivers license and offers you that ride to school, don't turn him down just because you don’t want to leave your friend behind. I hate to inform you, but that friend won't be in your life much longer. Plus, she's a big girl. She can go catch the bus like you were initially going to do alone. I don't care if she gets mad and doesn't talk to you for 4 days. Baby girl, he is so much more important.
When the next year comes and he's in three of your classes, don't separate yourself from him just because he's become one of the hottest quarterbacks the world has to offer. The sexy smirk and player games should signal that he needs you as his friend again. He isn't like that. Haven’t you noticed he can't even look at you anymore?
When the end of junior year comes and he walks up to you to try to convince you how much he needs you in his life, don't blush and walk away just because he intimidates you before he has a chance to ask you out. You are beautiful. He knows that. He's actually intimidated by you.
To be truthful, he has never loved someone as much as he loves you. He tries, but he just can't get you to see it. Watch his facial expressions when you say his name. He wants to believe there's hope, but his hope is slowly fading. In reality, he has never been so nervous around someone because everything you two have ever shared is on thin glass and he's afraid of losing it. He doesn't want to mess it up and I know you don't either, but if you see him sitting on one of the toy elephants in Walmart at 9 in the morning drinking vodka out of a water bottle, open up your eyes and see that he needs you. Don't turn your head and walk away. Instead, take him in your arms and hold him tight. He may appear strong on the outside, but the truth is he's completely fragile on the inside. His world is crashing down and no one but him is seeing that.
He needs your friendship.
He needs your love.
Don't just cut him out when high school starts because you're not "good" enough. Sweetie, in his eyes, you are the world. He is the one that will be there in the long run if you let him. High school would be so sweet if you just don't stop talking to him, but if you don't step up soon and show him you want him around, he'll be searching the seven seas to find something that honestly cannot compare to the incredible love story you two could've had. It was definitely one for the books. That's why I'm writing you now. I need you to wake up.
Love,
Your future self, the one who let him get away
divagate
I’m not going to lie,
I miss you.
I miss your voice.
I miss talking to you everyday.
I miss the electric currents you awoke in my veins.
You do not know how much joy my soul felt each time your name appeared on my phone.
What we had was special,
even if I’m not 100% sure there ever was an “us” to begin with.
Millennials have made dating such a tricky sport to play,
and I’m afraid we both received an F even though you stopped giving me the time of day.
I would try to blame this on timing, but timing had nothing to do with it.
If you had wanted me like I had wanted you, I know for a fact it would have been us against the world until the end.
k.l.
divagate: to stray
Nonfiction
Did you know that I used to read?
But then that changed when I met you,
and you were better than any book I had ever laid my eyes on.
I was engrossed in your every chapter and I had such high hopes to fit into your ending.
Suddenly, I realized I was just a filler for you and your story was yet to come.
I guess it’s time for me to pick up the paperbacks again.
They may hurt me, but at least I won’t be grieving someone who is still alive.
k.l.
Aspiration
Social media is weird
We wake up just to make sure everything is clear
Check Facebook and Snapchat
Don’t forget about their location
My heart is in a strange place
I’m not sure where it is stationed
It’s like all we care about is our exes
and whoever they are having sex with
Please take me back to a time
before my phone held my prime
I want to wake up
and just feel like everything is fine
k.l.