leandra

my therapist hates you. see, i told her about the days we spent together. the days in the back of your car until all of a sudden i didn’t quite fit there anymore. i don’t know if my arms were suddenly too long or if the shattered pieces of my heart just couldn’t mend with the glass in the windows. or if i was simply too difficult to be there anymore.

see, as i poured my frustration into my dampening pillow, i think i’ve come to realize that maybe you did try. that maybe all those times you asked to hang out were for more than just a friendship. that maybe you saw me in a way that i kept convincing myself you didn’t. i blame myself for that one. blame myself for listening to everyone else in regards to the potential of an us, rather than ever confronting you.

i think it’s for the best though. because, at the end of the day, you’re not who i wanted. though i tried enough nights to convince it to my bedroom ceiling. you’re not who or what i wanted. i think what i truly wanted was to be the person who lived. not the girl stuck in her bedroom most friday and saturday nights. be the girl who knew what life tasted like. did what everyone else i knew, did.

it never mattered. see, out of all the cards on the table, i just wanted someone, anyone really, to choose me.

so, even if my therapist hates you, i don’t. i’m really thankful for you. thankful because if it wasn’t for our weird friendship that walked the tightrope over being something more, i wouldn’t have realized that i’m not just a card. nor am i anywhere on the table.

the world’s the dealer.

Dear Brooke,

When you were fifteen, your aunt died in the most unfortunate of ways. After her funeral, you took an anklet because it was gift wrapped in a box labeled “For Brooke.” Your best guess was that it was meant to be for your sixteenth birthday. When you first got the anklet, you’d wear it under your sock because you didn’t want to bring attention to the bruise that formed next to it.

Then, one day, in the middle of English II, your leg rested over mine and I got just a bit too curious on why there was a lump in your sock. So, I asked you. You never gave me a real answer. “Don’t worry about it.” You said to me.

The next year we went to a trampoline park where you lost your anklet. You didn’t hesitate to do everything you could to find it, including taking off your black socks. I won’t lie to you and say I didn’t see the scar. It was nothing, but I heard how upset you grew to be the moment you realized you’d shown it. The thing is, though, that it was so small it was like Phoebe’s tattoo of the world on that one episode of Friends. But you freaked out anyway.

That was the day I realized that you will always think things are bigger than they are, especially if it seems really small.

I’d never admit to you that I got us lost, because you’re worse at directions than I am, and you’d get us even more lost. And yeah, sunsets are pretty, but sunsets also mean that we only have a few more minutes of light to find our way out of this forest. But, I’ll never admit to you, that I got us lost.

Nope. I’ll win when I turn to you and ask “Where are we?” like I did on the nights our backs pressed against gravel because beds weren’t an option anymore. Then, you’d look ay me with wide eyes and the scar under it I gave you on our seventh birthday, but you wouldn’t fix your mouth to say “I don’t know.” You wouldn’t do that because you’d never admit that you got us lost.

I think you should give me your yellow button up. The one you wear when it’s late at night and you throw it on because you don’t like it enough to wear it outside. That one. I mean, I think it’s only fair. You’ve stolen half of my clothes.

Well, not really. It’s more like half of my clothes are on your side of our closet.

I guess that’s not really it either. Because there aren’t really sides of our closet anymore. No separation. No distance. No distinction of what’s technically yours and what’s technically mine.

But, anyway, my point is that I’d really like something of yours to call mine. I guess the button-up would do no good: I wouldn’t fit it. And you saying you can’t fit my close is not the same. When my grey hoodie passes your knees, it’s adorable. You look like a human ball that’s sponsored by Nike. If I were to wear your yellow button up I’d look like I’d gone shopping for the first time in ten years -- and I’ve gained weight. 

Maybe that bracelet at the bottom of your bedside table you never wear. The one that looks more like a piece of string. That one. Just so that it’s fair. Just so if someone asks me where I got it, I can say, “I don’t know. I stole it from my girlfriend.” Just like you say every time someone asks you about my Nike sweatshirt. 

I’d never take it off. And I’d never let anyone hold it.

But then you get up from the kitchen island, push up your glasses, and lay your head on my lap as you keep writing. And I realize I’d much rather take all of you, rather than the little pieces. 

to the crack in your voice i heard but never acknowledged

that i didn’t make sense of incomplete sentences

for not seeing past red

 your hand touched a doorknob before mine touched a bottle

you never wore rings but i promised you one

and that empty promise equates loss

 your nightmares made me know more of you

but obviously not enough

a poem

first

you were wind

a calming breeze in florida heat

and a partner of the sea

making music

your crashes were subtle

and relaxing

safe

then

you were a storm

that forced temporary shelter

never really hurting anyone

but wooden base of my home

finally

you were a hurricane

no subtle destruction

and taking more lives