sad romantic poetry - Lilac Dove

Love poem: Passenger door // grocery store

Fresh lint from the dryer
My niece is crying
Because a boy pulled a baby-pink ribbon straight from her hair
& I told her, don’t worry
He didn’t take anything real from you
The most genuine things are
More intangible than they seem

So now I’m at the laundromat
Watching my lavender and velvet blanket dry
Something too delicate of material to end up in this white, vacant space
But I have already been charged
For a thousand liar’s crimes
Not my own, but it’s easy to take the blame
When the minds of the reckoners aren’t something you can change

Love poem: Passenger door // grocery store [continued]

I used to dream about being held
By someone so powerful
That they could both start and end bar fights for me
Think I was in my early twenties
So my wildest visions
Would make little sense to someone truly thinking of settling down
You have to act your age
In this kind of upscale town

Then you handed me a receipt
Me, counting your naturally full lashes
How strong they must be and if only
Mine were too
To resist my pulling them out
When I both do and don’t have free time
Which my mother would say is a crime
But laugh with me thereafter
Because true love doesn’t see you in black or in white
Genuine love both does and does not fight

Love poem: Passenger door // grocery store [continued]

Your voice was alarming
Because it began softening
Every tense fibre locked and chained to itself within my body
I warm my shivering shoulders with how hotly
My breath is on evenings
Like this one, in which I could not care less about who or what surrounds you and me
They are just bodies
And you are warm nectar
That only the most tender of creatures know how to find

I showed up on time
Your shift is almost over
But I am too shy
So, I take my bags
Spill a few things, say it’s alright
“You don’t have to help me”
(Oh man, but I want you to)
Pretend I have plans when you ask what I’m doing
(I am such a poor liar,
the truth practically stained on my teeth)

I want you to go sit in the driver’s seat
Open the passenger door for me

Come home and help me with the groceries

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Love poem: Perfectly real (really perfect)

Suddenly
The impetus is on me
To be perfect, so perfect, for you again
Satin & lavender bedsheets
Fresh clothes from the dryer
Neurons that synapse when the clock resets

But I can’t
Withstand
Dissonance
I can’t
Bear to
Live with regret
I can’t
Break free from
This tangled fishnet
The wire digging its claws directly into my spine

Disengagement when separated
Disregarded how you said maybe
Perhaps it’s my own agenda that
I failed to write out in black ink
My own handwriting looks foreign to me
The flowers in my apartment have finished dying
I closed the curtains, but someone is waiting
To see me burn out like I’ve been on fire this whole time

Carving my name into my solitude
Changing the location of a confined venue
I don’t like this dress
Don’t like how I look in it
Want you to tell me I inspire you to stop playing make-believe
Wish you would bring me roses & be gentle with me
Not let me lose any more sleep

I’m not really writing
I’m scared of defining
How lazy I’ve gotten at building my self-esteem
The ships are all sinking
The pilot keeps blinking
& the leftovers have spoiled because real things are only real in real time

So I hit “unsend”
Spend the afternoon in my garden
Playing with my own hair, saying your name to myself

I can’t even ask you
What you meant when you said nothing
Because I know myself to get in the way of what could be

I’ll trace my ashes
In long cylinder glasses
Faking a proof-of-concept of a girl who takes pride in the way she carries herself

Now I’m scared of writing
Because I don’t like what I see
And that holds far too much meaning to me

I’m sick of trying
To act like I haven’t been
Crying myself to sleep

Tell me I’m perfect
Say that you missed me
Step into my four-chambered studio where the pianos lack keys
& the guitars have no strings
We can dissolve into anything we want life to be

Tell me you missed me
Without lying to me
Tell me I’m perfect
Because you can see how I dream
Tell me you loved how
I didn’t seem desperate
To find in my own self what you’ve found in yours

I’ll rearrange my bedroom
Work on shifting my patterns
So that the stillness in your settings can bleed into me

Tell me I’m perfect
Without lying to me
Reach for me when I’m drowning
In my make-believe sea
Allow me to realize there’s more to let go of
More in life to make sense of
More in this life to see

When you’ve regained stability
Found blue-green lakes filled with clarity
Then, you can come back to me

I’ll be in my garden
Telling myself
That I don’t have to be perfect to be something real

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