Maybe I should’ve known we were destined
to crash and burn into flames, flickering
into nothing more than a faded spark.
You gave me a led weight to carry in the
centre of my chest, before you even gave ‘us’
any kind of title. A weight stuffed with crying,
waiting and wondering. Five-hour phone calls
before the sun woke, but no texts reached my
phone once she’d taken her place in the centre
of the sky. Only posts to your social media
confirmed that you were ignoring me
for no reason, except the fact that
you’d change your mind about us
from one day to the next, overnight
or over breakfast. It was like your heart
had a personality crisis, but you didn’t
want to get it diagnosed because
the idea of a red entity beating in
your chest would make you feel as though
you, weren’t the one in control of you.
Endless promises and plans turned to last-minute
cancel calls because you had something better to do,
a late night meet with a bottle of alcohol so you
could drift far away. I’ve never known anyone to
want to escape from themselves, as much as you.
My friends couldn’t believe the amount of times
I stood and waited at train stations, just for you to
cancel my journey, our journey, with no refund offered
for my wasted time and tears. My friends couldn’t believe
I forgave you every time you left and came back, and left and came back and left and came back like it was a perfectly rehearsed routine you’d practised in front of your bedroom mirror. You made me feel like a secret
and your mouth never opened in the shape of my name,
so I was stuck within the walls of your throat.
“Why don’t your parents know about us?”
I would ask when I felt brave but my question was always met with silence, a silence that seeped into my blood and made me sick. Not lovesick where I delicately pined for you, and picked petals from flowers debating on whether you loved me. Instead, it was the flower that picked
me, pulling my hair out. Screaming at me and telling me
that you use me for nothing more than an ego boost.
You made me the sort of sick where my mother had to hold my hair, cursing your name as she etched in a new house rule that you were to never step foot in our house again.
Perhaps you were a toxin and my body was throwing you out. When the body is hit with a sickness such as you, it grows an immunity. I have bumped into you since and
I didn’t wretch or slightly splutter. So maybe at last I have recovered from my ‘first love’.