shit rough drafts

you

stole my spark

and sold me an imitation.

you covered the sun,

your trick—the reflection.

a machine meant to devour me,

gears grinding with urgency,

how else can i mark the time?

how else can i walk the line

of feeling, of devotion,

of perverse forward motion?

grant me an emergency.

offer regulation through intensity.

you passed off chaos as feeling

and now i’m reeling,

stuck in the space

i spent far too long

trying not to write this poem.

avoiding clouds of words in my head

the way you avoid coffee in the afternoon—

i wish it were all so simple.

i tried to tell you how it feels

when i can’t stop, and you see me

riding a spiral down the storm drain

i keep in the back of my mind

but i don’t think

any of it

came out right.

all i am

is shreds of doubt

spilling from me.

reflected off you.

sent back to

me .

do you know what i mean?

can you hear what i’m saying

or is my apology echoing,

caught in the static of

who i’ve been?

i know i sometimes speak in circles,

but i couldn’t tell you why.

i know sometimes i

disappear

in wavelengths and black holes, and

i know i can be hard to hold:

you don’t know how

to deal with me.

you don’t know how

that feels.

i promise im never trying to be mean—

arguably worse than pointed cruelty,

honestly, worse than intentional spite

(deep down you know the feeling).

it’s gonna take more than cindi’s laugh

to fill the space, to bridge the gap

between who we were and who i became

when everything melted in like a week

watching it felt like forever

watching it felt like i’d never

seen goodbye from this side of the glass

maybe that’s how i hide;

maybe that’s my pride

still trying to prove

i’m not always like this

there’s always tomorrow,

and it’s

always holdin the candle

that is,

always bein the third wheel

but i’ve

not given up yet

i’m just

taking the long shot,

the hard bet,

the way it feels

on a summer day

when you’re soaking wet,

when you’d rather forget

when the taste of yesterday is caught in your teeth

and it can only mean

one thing

but you’re much too shy to say it out loud, so.

lean in close;