Strange poet has returned, enjoy my depressing poetry.
The Box of His Postcards
The box of his postcards that sits under my bed, where nobody can find them. Not even my roommate, who will never find out. It sits there, gathering dust until I’m alone enough to read them again and again. Until he sends me new ones, from across the world in his small town with no remarkable features.
While I’m here, a grade ahead of a school filled with geniuses. Geniuses that don’t understand, that I can feel. That I am more than a boy who can do math in seconds, who plays two instruments well, and writes papers more elegant than any poet.
But maybe that’s because I’m also a poet, but only to him. Who must keep his own box of postcards, from my school that the world knows. From the school he could never get into, with his little money and poorer grades.
But he’s mine, and I love him. Even if he’s not of high class, or even a woman. Even if the world tries to separate us. Even when we send postcards back and forth like it’s the first world war. Even when I barely hear from him when he’s busy. Even when I know that if the letters stop coming for too long, that he’s gone. And he didn’t tell me.
Though I’m waiting for my escape, so I can go back to the nearest big city, so I can see him on the weekends. Earn my degree while there, with him. Where I can offer more support than a few poems on the back of a card, more than just xs and os and promises that will fulfill in over a year.
I just tell myself to get through this day, this week, this month and this year. Until I can see him, make sure he’s still alive. Make sure he eats. Make sure he’s not hurting. Make sure he has friends. Make sure he knows I love him more than the entire world and the ones beyond ours.
But until then, I lie on my back in my dorm, alone on a weekend where I want nothing more than to be with him. My friends who invited me places, but I said no, to be here. Lost in my own thoughts about him.
The broken boy across the world, who sends me tear-stained postcards. Postcards I will never stop reading, even if he’s gone.
