Category: Poetry

I’d let you ruin my sleep

I’d let you kiss me with morning breath

But when I am by your side

You hold me like a temporary being

 

I’ll put on my make up to make my eyes pop

But they light up when I see you anyway

I wish I could hide that from you

You don’t see yourself in my eyes

 

I see you from across the room

In my eyes you are a mirror ball, lighting up the room

You do not see me and I know that is for the best

But I wish I knew what changed

Why do I not shine for you like I used to

I cannot argue with your ghost
Cannot reason with the dead
I take your silence everywhere with me
I carry it like a wounded bird

It is likely that you do not think of me fondly
I split my emotions at the bar and became the thing you feared
Arrogantly, I stand right where you left me

Oh how she longs to be the cool girl
Instead she will replay every moment that went wrong
Every word, every glance, every interaction at the bar

She will wear perfume in her hair
She will hope the smell lingers and reminds him of her
But instead it will bring him bitter memories
Of the girl who could no longer play it cool
She felt too much
She said too much
She was too much

I wash my hair for the first time since you left
The traces of your cologne are erased permanently
The last love bite you left is fading away
The first snow has fallen and you weren’t there

I stand at the bus stop you walked me to on our first date
The air was warm when we met
Now I stand in the same spot as the snow pierces my skin with no lover to hold

I stare blankly at my phone
Waiting for your call
I know nothing will come
I know my words were too strong
My feelings too much
I long so much to be the poem and not the poet

Your drunk texts used to excite me
Now I’m not even worthy of your sober second thoughts
Not even worthy of a Friday night drunk text

What kind of conversations went on with your friends
That made my name twist its way into your liquor filled talks

The friends that I once met and talked with while you made eyes at me from across the room

I stayed in that place for far too long

That place between comfort and holding on

Holding onto nothing but a vague memory

A feeling that started to fade, but I was determined to keep

There is strength and fear in letting go

The places that once instilled fear in my heart

Are now places of solitude and peace

The streets of my pain become memories

That’s all you are, a memory

I love the solitude I feel on trains
The feeling of moving away from something and going to something new
The lovely in-between where I don’t have to think

Where I hold onto infinite nothingness
Where I belong to no one and no city
Simple existing amongst the fellow travellers

When I arrive at my destination
Whether I am home or somewhere new
I feel a beautiful sense of renewal
The train is my place of worship
The journey in between; my religion

Never ending scenes of nature
I feel small but powerful
I am part of that temporary sweet nothing

I feel an unfathomable sense of loneliness when the sun goes down

Not for the lack of a partner

But for the lack of the glow that the day brings

The absence of the company of the day

I wear the glasses that pinch the bridge of my nose to soak up the details of the last moments before the sun goes down

The golden glow of my best friend’s hair

The dancing branches of the soft breeze in the trees

The conversations that left me in tears from laughing too hard

The small patches of sunlight through the kitchen window

How Edinburgh flats glow under the disappearing sky

Watching my cat curl up where the sun left its mark

I fear that I feel too much

Or sometimes not at all

That my emotions come out ten times stronger

But why hold back a feeling so strong

To embrace life’s beauty whilst accepting its flaws

Filling the night with literature, music, and film

Something to savour the beauty of the day

The desire to be close to someone fades away

The streets that were once cursed by tainted memories are just streets

In fact, I am happy whilst walking past them now

For the memories I have made

And the love I have felt

It was all worth it to feel the beauty of life

Despite the temporary pain

Beautiful things will come around again

Do you still think of me fondly?

As you lay your head to rest on the pillow where I used to dream beside you

Do you miss me in the same way that I miss you?

Do I truly miss you or just the version of you I first met?

You used to smile at me from between my thighs

Now you avoid my eye at the dinner table

Making excuses to avoid my messages

My heart grows colder as you fade away

I was just a convenience until I was an inconvenience

In my dreams you convince me it was real

but it’s not real it’s all in my head and it always has been

since you’re gone, I can erase the man in my head

a month has passed

I no longer miss the sweetness of your words

The small moments that break up the silences

I fill the void with my successes

Kissing boys at the bus stop where you left me

Leaving lipstick stains on coffee cups instead of your lips

Making my mark on the world without someone beside me

I deserve to be loved the way I love and cherish myself

Ordered the wrong wine at the bar. I am sitting alone on Valentine’s Day waiting for a friend and I look like I’ve been stood up. Last year I was with a man I didn’t love anymore. This year I lost a man I never loved. But what if? That’s the constant question on my mind. And I know the answer. We were never going to work, I was obsessed with the idea of you and the fake conversations I had with you in my head. And when we spoke it would never be the same, it would never be enough but I lured myself into a false illusion thinking that it would get better. That one day you would say you loved me even though I wasn’t entirely sure that I was in love with you. In fact I was never in love with you, it was always the idea of you, the night me we met. It was like a fucking film. Catching eyes across the dance floor, making cool conversation, letting you know I was interested, walking me all the way home, the non stop conversation, the way you kissed me at my door, the sweet start to a doomed end. It was a god damn fairytale with a realistic ending. It ended. It was never meant to be and that’s okay, it just sucks and that’s also okay. I wish I never met you but I’m still glad that I did. You were never my person and you never will be but god I’ll miss those small moments. Waking up in your bed when I never intended to stay the night. The warmth of your back against my chest. Small kisses upon my forehead. The feeling of your hair. The way I would feel your lingering stare. Your perfect arms around my frame, holding me there, in that moment, where I still am. I can’t leave and I don’t know why. If I sat in your room one more time I know it wouldn’t be right but god I wish I could spend one more night.