Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick)

Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick)

I think we’re
Not getting too wrapped up
I’ll get up soon
To turn the microwave off

I think we’re
Naturally not too wrapped up
I’ll get up later
To turn the microwave off

I scratched my leg violently on rose thorns
As if I would ever mind
It’s been a long time since
Brown eyes, green eyes
I hate when they turn hazel
Like an olive tree
Park my car on Chestnut avenue
It’s a longer walk but
I like the name
Burn it to see embers
Collect street signs
All the rose thorns in the world are allowed to scratch me
In fact, I’ll invite them with bliss
Using long, Bambi eyelashes

Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick) [continued]

I think you would be
Friends with the quarterback
I never cared about football
We could make fun of
The way they drop the ball
(Again!)
Wearing their jerseys’ cos we like the material
So supportive
What a team effort
I clench my hands together because otherwise I think I’m going to lose my mind

I never really understood the concept of romance
Is it you buying me a vegan strawberry milkshake?
Dirt on my face at the park and you think I look pretty?
I have thousands of songs I’ve been dying to share
With somebody
They mean
Too much to me
To share, though
So I’ll
Keep them to myself
Out of bad habit
I’m the bad habit

Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick)[continued]

Show up late and get there just on time
I wouldn’t get through security clearance with that
Type of ambivalence I could
Make a rosebud dream
Of grabbing me from the interior and
Turning me inside out
So the world could know
I wouldn’t get through security clearance like this

Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick) [continued]

What’s that?
Is that romance
You getting me a vegan strawberry milkshake?
That I put in the fridge
To enjoy my second half the very next day
Laughing to myself
Sharp edges soften
My shampoo smells lovely
I can’t get through security clearance like this

An olive tree
Okay, I’ll be an olive tree
If you pick me
Okay,
I’ll be an olive tree
If you choose me

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Love poem: Asleep (daylight)

Love poem: Asleep (daylight)

We were watching King of the Hill
And oh my God, I miss your laugh
The gleam in your off-shadow hazel eyes
I want it to come right back
I wish we could go back in time to having everything
That was really all I wanted
You- I will never know, the records you don’t share with company
The places you go when you fall sleep

I wanted, to lay down my study materials
On your teenage-flannel-style twin bed
My God, I miss the whiteboard on your wall
Reading all the strange things you write in your childlike handwriting
I felt reserved over a handful minus one of four nights
Held them damn near so close I would get tongue-tied, just trying to make conversation with a cashier at the grocery store

Behind my eyes, blinking – in time-lapse frames
Your smile like a diamond without that discomforting glare
You were my centrepiece, and I was quiet as a soft stone, and I liked that
Not yet realizing how far-fetched it was of a thought that I could keep you
Where you are
And be there, too
(Just a thought)

Love poem: Asleep (daylight) [continued]

Oh my God, you swallowed me whole
I looked forward to the weekend like I never had in my teenage years
All I ever did back then, was dance around my living room like I had friends
You widened my gaze and we created our own place
Where teenage-flannel for a thirty-something was awfully inviting and I
Never cared or considered that you weren’t romantic
My God, I loved being with you
Like I was of no importance
You took centre stage and you painted me a grave
It looked just like it does in the magazines

You went down, so far down
There was no way to follow you
I would have, if I could have
Was not under the impression that a few bad days would turn into half a decade
Panic attacks because I couldn’t reach down and grab you
Shake you, wake you
Get you out of this rancid, deeply isolating dream
Say something like, hey,
(maybe this is really nothing)

It wouldn’t have helped
Because my wishes were far-fetched

Love poem: Asleep (daylight) [continued]

But to this day, I don’t know if you’ll make it
To be like what you created
When you first said hello to me,
“So, um, who are you?”
So, so, so, so, so in love with you
(Are you kidding me?)

Fresh piece of pastel paint
It’s archaic – the cinema is
I remember, we were watching a movie
I got so scared
You made fun of me with distant disposition and cruelty
In that split second, I developed this pit in my stomach
That you no longer were capable of comforting me
Whatever pulled me towards you in the beginning, was not based on effort
The film was playing, and I felt like crying
Crawled to the kitchen and wanted to crawl out of the window
So terrified of what had become of a bruised reality

Image generated for me using DALL-E by Erik Huerta (@Erikismissing on Instagram)

Love poem: Asleep (daylight) [continued]

Can never get right, on paper
The hypnotic daze that expands in my most cherished memories
“So, um, who are you?”
So attached to that phrase
Teenage-minded girl
Hopeful in a self-defeating mannerism
It leads me to wonder
It keeps me awake

What if it was a dream?
What if it was all fake?
Best Cabernet Sauvignon I’ve ever had in my life
I could have slept for days

We were watching our favourite show
And oh my God, I miss your laugh
Waking up to you, hiding from daylight
Should have ripped off the curtains and made you face it

Love poem: Asleep (daylight) [continued]

Please
Come back
To this life

There is
A girl
Who cares

But I can’t come down
That far
To meet you
Where you sleep

In shallow pools, I still grieve
There is nobody to wake me

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Not a love poem: Swan lake memories

Not a love poem: Swan lake memories

Butterflies flying into me, crashing lightly
You told me my skin was soft, and though I knew it to be true,
I felt in part indebted to you.
Like I couldn’t carve out a space
Large enough to climb into
Show you why your dreams are just make-believe

Not my responsibility to teach anybody anything
Because who do I think I am
Easily tan, have Swan Lake memorized & I do pirouettes in my dining room
I still remember the dress I planned to wear
Continues to hang on the shelf
I don’t look in that specific direction

A poem that is not a love poem because it doesn't have a happy ending, or an ending at all.

Not a love poem: Swan lake memories (continued)

Exhausted from doing nothing at all
About how your bad habits look even worse when I look into a microscope
Focusing on school
Highlighting my study materials
No, not you – there, waiting for me,
Opening the door
Letting me cry
Telling me you liked how I felt safe.

I want to hate the trees you like, but there are so many in every place I’ve visited in the last year, and I feel weak when I want to photograph them because they’re so beautiful, and memory plays in time-lapse frames to make me feel sick and dismal with its reminders.

I feel weak anyway
I know the neuroscience of loss, but who I wanted to be I forgot
You make me weak, you made me vulnerable
I loved it and I hated it
I retained it
Delicate like a fine-point pen drawing insects on your arm that isn’t covered in tattoos
I wish I could hate you

Not a love poem: Swan lake memories (continued)

I’ll move like a moth, I think you forgot
The area code that leads to a postcode
That leads to a telephone wire on an absolutely fragrant fire
In the middle of the city, and the chaos causes lawsuits
We like it because we’re in trouble
Playing tag in the backyard of your grandparents’ house
I miss the smell of hydrangeas
That changed colours
When they felt like it, like I do

I feel weak in places I didn’t know were part of me
When I see a tree
That makes me think, he must be there
Sitting pleasantly
Wasting his life without me

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Love poem: Why I stay far away from you

Love poem: Why I stay far away from you

Lavender highlighter pens and derivatives of peptides
You, sitting across the aristocratic table from me
Bruised in a way that only you could contain
I need a gold medallion for your table manners, white & yellow daisy in a jar
Baby blue periwinkle Bambi dress, dress up for you
Hush, I’m trying to study
But it feels so lovely
The natural light bringing out the specks in your irises

You don’t, really talk too much.
You think you do, but you don’t
Just enough
Tip of my tongue
In flames falling all over the sidewalks for you
I miss you like white stains on my teeth
Think of you wearing turtleneck sweaters in the mountains high up
Cylindrical daydreams feel too soft, too hazy to be absorbed readily
Sad thing is they only stay dreams
Have to keep you far away from me
Cos if you were to come close
Oh, my baby blue, oh I’d love to really let go
I’d love to just let you know.

Love Poem: Why I stay far away from you (continued)

You know I love you so much, I swim like goldfish freed from a little paper cup or a balloon
Held by a child, shaken like a madman
I want you on the highways, the overlapping freeways that make me lose my mind every time
In Texas, in Calabasas, the swing-set of a family home
And how I wish I could just plead
For you to be the man I falsely believe I know you can be
How I know what you need
I’d love to just let you know.

Ultimately, I love you and accept you just as you are
I wouldn’t change a thing
So I have to separate myself
You and me in the same room, that’s violence
That’s you laughing at how I have no concept of what monopoly is nor how to play any type of card game
It’s you making fun of me for the cute things I say and do
It’s you making me fall in love with myself even more in a way only tenderness could do
And this is why I have to stay far away from you.

Love Poem: Why I stay far away from you (continued)

I was seated in the Victorian chair, studying my amino acids
Brought me the worst cup of coffee I ever did have
I drank it all – okay, maybe half, I kept looking at you
Focusing on your manuscript and I was smiling
Jagged edges
Confetti for a party that was never thrown
Like a mountain goat, I could climb diagonally towards you
Swim to you in thunderstorms
Tear you apart by looking at you – not once, but twice
I’m in love with how you look at me and how you don’t look at me and then you

Look up at me
And I’m studying the amino acids
Can’t get you out of my head, you’re the worst

A ghost can’t be in a coma
But a well-dressed boy is a blessing and a curse

You’re like a pill
I can’t
Take

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Poem: Little baby bat (February)

Poem: Little baby bat (February)

And that’s all that he needs from her
Pretty gal in his Vans t-shirt
“Felt cute,” so I matched it with a plaid skirt
I didn’t think you’d notice; when you didn’t, it still hurt

To know that I
Am not
The important figurine my egotistical self deems me to be
If our destinations were predetermined,
I know you’d still find a way to hurt me on purpose
Was so confused, wondered why I was acting so nervous
Fell into a tar black trap trying to become perfect
I think to myself, was it worth it
If it’s me, you’ll always think less
Doesn’t matter the lip shade or the dress
Doesn’t matter how warm the hostess

The pretty dresses that I bought to look like your housewife
Don’t even fit me anymore since I recovered and came back to life
I don’t think paradise is
Looking at a light pink satin gown
Having daydreams, strolling around town
Nobody to look at, so where I look is down
Beneath the surface, off the edges, your voice is my favourite sound
I hate, hate, hate not having it around
You lost yourself or something, your irrationality is profound
In this parallel universe, a new beginning is what I’ve found
When I think about my love, I kind of love myself now

Ambiguity and confusion
Inspiration and bliss
Hair soft & golden, my perfume is what you’ll miss
The floral soft magnitudes
The strings on your toys
One of your wrong moves was assuming there were any other boys
When the yelling got too heavy, I surrendered to the noise
I never cried in front of you; I held myself with poise
Some things don’t really matter when you don’t have a choice

I recognized a softness
In you, but it was me
I’m the girl with pastel colours, who makes life lovely
A beautiful, sacred place to be
You felt so far away that I could not see
The visions that you had of me kept smothering me
You had an advantage
You ran out of chances
You never considered the stones I held
To believe in something, to pretend
You loved being adored
I was alone and bored
Pick out keychains with our names at the corner store
Saying that you love me always seemed like such a chore

You move one way, I step right back
I held on tight; I now regret that
It takes some time for me to become attached
But the memories that we contain run like a time-lapse
And I have flashbacks
Panic attacks
Running right after you, you screaming right back
I’m the glass wind shield, you’re the baseball bat
This isn’t what love is like, do you realize that?

I made my resolution early
To not find myself trapped
I wrap my wings around my torso like a little baby bat
I think of you while in traffic, I get so mad
I’m not your baby doll no more, I’m never coming back

Running right after you, you screaming right back
I’m the Victorian vanity mirror, you’re the one whose mad
Then you tell me you love me, but you look at me like that
I’m not your baby doll no more

But I am what you lack

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