Poem: Baddd girlfrienddd

Poem: Baddd girlfrienddd

I want him to love me for my bad reputation
Lilacs and daisies,
And we don’t even have to have those kinds of conversations.
Like who do you think you are all the time misbehaving?
But I’m just a little doll in a lace dress,
Can’t you see how much joy I’ve been faking?

My garden is so pretty
My kitchen is pristine
New tiles on the bathroom floor to feel Victorian,
And I know that my cursive is quite Gregorian.
You vomit all over my love letters because it’s too much for you.
And maybe that’s why we’re not so–

Made for each other,
Perfect synchronous lovers.
I’m embarrassed to say
I think about it every day.
Do you think you want more from me?
I’m already overflowing- a coffee cup that forms bubbles and bleeds
I want you to buy me flowers most of all
And I worry this is the only thing I ever think about
And do I worry that I’m not enough for you?

Poem: Baddd girlfrienddd (continued)

All the opposite,
Your grey hairs in such ethereal hues
I think I’m way too much for you.
A silver plate and French dessert, picking off the residue,
I swear, in another lifetime,
I was also deeply in love with you

But I am a crazy girl,
I am truly wild.
Everywhere that I go, they collect some kind of files
They say the weirdest things about me, and it’s never made sense.
I wanted to be the most trustworthy person,
But I’m not very good at making friends.

And this makes me sad.
And I want you to help me not feel bad.
But if that’s too much for you,
Then that makes my suspicions true.

Poem: Baddd girlfrienddd (continued)

I am so used to being too much,
But never enough
Never enough.
I am so used to being far too much,
But never enough
Never enough.

My hair is gently tied with a beautiful pink ribbon
He thinks that I did things that I didn’t.
I’ve always wanted to be someone that people could trust
But if I cleaned a window,
He would still just see arachnids and dust

And that was a bad line; I’m not a very good poet. It’s one of my insecurities,
Though I hope I don’t show it.
But this is a mess,
The fabric between our asymmetrical beds.
I don’t even know where I feel the best laying my head.
I have duvet covers in different area codes and these apartments that don’t even belong to me
But I wanna belong to somebody
And I want them to take care of me.
And I want them to not be so scared of me.

Poem: Baddd girlfrienddd (continued)

So now I’m crying on the freeway, writing this using voice-to-text
And I think I’m beautiful, but well aware that he’ll forget
And I wanna be taken care of properly, like my dad would admire
And I want to be given flowers, like my mother would appreciate

But I am the common denominator,
The problem at hand.
And I just want somebody who can understand
That I wanna be trustworthy to the point where you believe I didn’t do it
So, if I set this place on fire,
Are you gonna give me a hard time about it?
Or try your best to see me get through it

Poem: Baddd girlfrienddd (continued)

Watch me
Dancing
Laughing
Crying
Soaking
Rainfall
Open
Windshield
Broken
I fell in love with you three times
I sat and sobbed in the shower, thirty-nine

Or are you going to laugh with me?
Because it is inherently funny
That we carved this life together

I’m aware I appear as a rotten tomato that ruins the rest of the vine,
But someday someone will trust that I’m good on the inside

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Poem: Love it any less

Poem: Love it any less

He tells me
Not to get too excited
As we sit alongside the deep-blue riverbed
But me – I’ve been counting down the days
I saw my chamomile flowers bloom, then close, and fall apart in the duration of one week
As I hadn’t changed the water
I was distracted by the sparkle
Of the morning’s horizon
As it painted me in shades of pink I couldn’t quite capture on film

California outlawed flavoured vape products
I know, I’m mourning it heavily
Now I find myself smoking non-menthol cigarettes in my parking lot
Like my father did, in his
Amber tones of his skin shining like
Diamonds you pick back up from the jewelry store
That line your blue-tinted watch with a brand painted in cursive ink
Like your mother’s Russian handwriting
Soft in all of the
Roughest places

My afternoon gaze is
Thick with gloom and hope, both at the same time
I’m wrapped in my navy ‘Windy City’ sweater that I bought at a Walgreens
Where it took four cashiers to properly ring up my alcoholic drink, too
Because the cashiers were mostly underage
But we were on the same page
Laughing about how liquor makes the turbulent flight go smoothly
And how I’ll wrap myself in bridal magazines and read the new Forbes “thirty under thirty” list
Knowing I won’t make it on there in less than three years
Cutoffs are so harsh, isn’t it maddening
Life is so funny sometimes, at the right times
I’ll fade to November grey like a collapsing sky
I’ll lay my head down and never, ever wonder why
I’ll endure the gradual passage of time

He adjusted his collar
And we laughed about who is taller
Because me, my small frame, I take up so little of space
Though I feel like if I spread my fingertips, they’ll reach the mountains
Surrounded by cherry stems and cascading fountains
Waterfalls along the trail where my senior terrier walks on her own self-created path
My glimmer of hope in this brittle, dark night
Made for a hollow tin of little coloured cards stolen from the paint store
Where we wrote our biggest dreams on
Gathering the courage to set them on fire
And not intending to burn down the park grounds down with our miniature vision boards

I found a poem I published for a boy three years ago
On his birthday
It was called ‘I wrote you a poem’
My mother laughed at how cute that was
I did too
I think back to those years and how he never came through
And somehow that didn’t make me love him any less
Probably even more so

I have to get better with taking derivatives
Along with the vitamins in my medicine cabinet
I finally bought a parking permit for university so I could stop
Getting tickets
Even though the traffic cop is such a sweetheart
He asks about my navy ‘Windy City’ sweater
Things like “so when are you going to finally end up there?”

The piece of rose-tinted, painted card-stock
That I’d never set on flames
I keep it in my wallet
To know that
I’ll get there

I’ll get there
Until I’m at the drugstore again with the cashiers
That are of-age, by that time
And I’m buying wine

And Chicago will treat me like it’s been mine this whole time
And I won’t love it any less
Probably even more so

© Elle Silvestrov

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