Flat reverberations fill the spaces between my bones
It’s never loud enough
To drown the tingling sensation I get behind my eyes when you smile
And my body will never be big enough to hold my soul when you laugh
And my heart will never be smart enough to realize
That your heart will never whisper in your ear about me
The way mine does
The way mine always has
About the sound of your voice
And the shaky timbre of your laugh
And the crinkles between your eyebrows when you think too hard
And I tell myself that if I love you so much,
You have to love me back
But that’s not the way it works
You don’t
You won’t
I should forget the feeling of your hand on my shoulder
But that’s not the way it works
I can’t.

flushed, flustered,
burning red,
a sinking feeling signalling gross misinterpretation.

oops

Nothing more than a memory now,
Phantom limbs tingling,
Buzzing in the empty space next to mine.
Still, silent, gone,
As if nothing was ever there.

desperation

And every time I see you it starts again
The thought that maybe it’ll be different
And maybe you’ll smile at me like you used to,
Or tease me for misusing a word to try and impress you,
To try and make you think I’m smarter than you are
(even though sometimes I was)

Hallways are getting harder and harder to deal with
Fighting through crowds to get to biology 
And accidentally staring into your eyes
And accidentally smiling
And the tears don’t take long to catch on
Maybe they learn faster than I do.

memories

The things that tend to stick around are the unimportant ones. The way his eyes meet mine and dart away faster than lightening, the static electricity that found its way into my bones when I imagined holding his hand, the crushing weight of a thousand wasted thoughts when I realized that I was in love with a fantasy, not a person. I remember the way his hair looked two weeks ago when he laughed across the room, and the way he fiddled with the edges of his sleeve while he was talking, but I don’t remember any of the words he used to say to me. Funny things, mostly, things that made me smile once upon a time. The devil’s in the details, I guess, but I wish I could remember the strange intricacies of his speech when he would come and sit next to me and just talk. 

I remember walking down Halsted in April two years ago, and the way the daffodil behind my ear smelled so fresh and new and earthy, and I remember crying in my bedroom about a boy whose face has faded away into nothingness. And last year, sobbing myself into migraines over the destruction of make believe realities. Last summer, the way my fingers ached from gripping my bike handles too hard, my face ached from smiling too much. Phrases here and there, but ultimately oblivion.

Just…blank. 

(obligatory self-pitying rant about valentine’s day being a commercial holiday fueled largely by loneliness)

(constant denial)

things to do before i die

• learn to swing dance
• learn to dance in general
• get my shit together and learn an instrument
• fence
• sew something that looks presentable
• deal with my handwriting so I can become an English teacher whose writing doesn’t look like a schizophrenic dog’s
• watch the original DW from the 60s
• learn to draw bodies
• have a rose garden
• ski
• successfully cook a nice Italian dinner
• become an English teacher???????? maybe???? figure out my life
• learn to do a proper pompadour with my hair
• deal with my inferiority complex, self confidence issues, body image issues, social anxiety, etc, etc
• get over d, s, and h
• make a difference

Glances and eye contact whose effect has only become more potent as time passes. Sparks fly like fireflies, but I think I might be the only one who can feel them. Shoulders brushing and elbows touching, nothing more, but what else could be needed? I can think of a few things. But there’s such beauty in unrequited adoration. Smiles that make me feel as though my skin is too small to hold my soul, rare laughter that makes the fluorescent bulbs glaring down from above seem like sunlight that only I can see. There’s pain, too, there’s suffering in the knowledge that shoulders and elbows is the most that there ever will be, but pain passes.

Hopefully.

I’M SO UPSET

ALSO THERE’S NO FOOD IN MY HOUSE

Picture every nerdy stereotypical high school boy you’ve ever seen in a movie or in real life.

Glasses, zitty, odd choice in facial hair, ill fitting jeans, and especially a love for Dungeons and Dragons.

Add between thirty and forty years, and imagine them in my basement.

Sometimes having a nerdy dad isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

(most of the time it is)

(I just want to be able to go into my basement)

(all of my socks are down there)

gentle society

Rain was falling in sheets on the busy streets, and the well lit sidewalks were almost totally empty. Passing by in their warm cars, people pitied those they saw standing on the corners with battered umbrellas waiting for the light to change as the frigid wind wormed its way into the spaces between their bones. Further uptown, orange light dripped out of an open window through the thin white curtains, soft music drifting down to the street below. Inside, quiet laughter mixed with the sound of wine glasses and gentle society. As late afternoon faded smoothly into early evening, the laughter blossomed and grew, billowing out to street level like gusts of wind. 

Walking on the drenched sidewalk below, she turned her cold, wet face up to the open window and closed her eyes, allowing herself to momentarily be consumed by the easy joy and quiet company the people upstairs were savoring. She imagined herself clean and dry, sitting amongst well dressed people with smiles on their faces and laughter beginning to well up at the backs of their privileged throats. She was wearing a muted burgundy dress, and her hair was smooth and up in a chignon. The entertained faces were turned towards her as she quipped and joked with them. 

A man in a trenchcoat jostled past her, bumping her shoulder hard and breaking her reverie. She sighed, feeling colder than she had been. Scolding herself mentally, she wrung out her sopping hair and braced herself for the long walk home. 

i’m sad but what’s new