Here’s a thank you to the ones who rolled their eyes at my poems
Here to the one who spit nothing but poison and lies into my wine
Stealing more than just my confidence, I should have admitted to your mother that I wasn’t okay that night in your family room
“Your son is stealing drugs and is also doing them. We’re both sick, but I am willingly going to treatment”
As I proudly become the newest appointed member of the NA fellowship
Cocaine is not a pot replacement
I hope you are able to overcome the demons that we both pulled out and played with together,
Every single fucking wasted weekend of last summer
The verbal lashing from January still pulses anger through my veins if I think about how you were never really a best friend to me; and no thanks, I’m good on hearing how you’ve crawled back into your web to spin me into an insect; a pest
To the ones who used me for their summer expenses and experiences
Whoever won’t let go of the person I was yesterday, last week, last month or last year
Your voice is muted to me if you are inside my crystal clear lake
Forgiveness
Uplifting
Chemicals
Karma
Youthful
Optimistic
Undefeated
I love that living my best life is something that bothers the two of you
Maybe you deserve each other
Perhaps you deserve another visit to rock bottom,
But for her, it would be the first –
Although justification mixed with chemical concoctions can create a denial stronger than any narcotic that you’ve normalized into your social circles
Oh, my dear little girl
The seething feeling that fuels my inspiration is something you once had until you let the chase for attention suffocate the beautiful, creative, maternal, caring, attentive, and non-judgemental friend you once were to not just me but all of us
Why, tell me why and how
Do you feel good putting the ones who you claim to love down?
I have a legacy unleashing from my fingertips, and you were supposed to be written in the dedication, not the material I use as examples to my readers
So they will never have to endure the cruelty that the two of you hold in common
Even with all this being said
Underneath the back-and-forth bullshit
I see a little boy who feels the need to compete in a league he wishes he could have been born in
I see a little girl who wants so badly for this pain to be taken away and has spent all of her lunch money on the worst people and dangerous places to be not be alone
Both of you are hurting somewhere on the inside that you decided to take out on me
And while I am one of the strongest women either one has known
Not even I could tolerate the abuse, the deference, the lies, the manipulation, the teasing, the taunting
That has left me nothing but haunted in the East Bay Area –
Every time it rained that were my tears representing the detox that nearly killed me
I can’t say I ever missed him, for I felt more alone every time he would turn me around in bed
I can’t say I will ever miss her, for the version I want back has not existed in far too long
And while I have love for you both forever, in the sense that you helped me achieve this wonderful feeling of bliss and happiness
And for manifesting the most tender lips, I have ever kissed during your ego-protecting apology
Let this be my last warning;
Play with a poet’s heart
And you are forever written in between the lines of her art
_______________
North Beach
Red, white, and green lights
Sparkling nights in San Francisco, where familiar origins of love that run through my family have blossomed before
I want so much more
But one out of the thousands of things I thank you for is making me appreciate my time more
I will never walk down Pier 39 the same again.
My stoic soldier, I can’t believe I am witness to the beginning of your dream
I only pray to my mother in heaven that she and God are conspiring our relationship to be everlasting instead of another memory
Though aiding the pain of losing you is something I have no experience in
They don’t write handbooks for having to mourn the man who was nothing but honest, loyal, loving, tender, gracious, generous, and my favorite
Himself
With me
I love holding your hand through our own little Italy
Showing me places in a city I spent last year thinking that someone else was going to be the one to help me overcome the ghosts of my haunted love past
Instead of becoming the definition of yet another attempt to have my heart and his word kept
Earth-brown eyes that bring me down from my unkind thunder self-sabotage clouds
Have I ever told you I used to be anxious to hear the birds sing if I had been up all night? This is another reminder that you helped clear my vision to see spring flourish as if it were the first time
Now, whenever the birds sing their song
I think of you
_____________
Companionship is not a term to use for a “relationship”
Let me state this again;
Companionship
Is what you get from your family dog
Not someone who wants hold your hand through downtown, drink coffee on a Sunday and be my plus one to summer sunsets
And, I guess arguably I was your bitch for five months with the way you ran me in circles
Driving you to work
Paying for every dinner
Fetching for the breadcrumbs of your faulty affection
Every drink
Every drug –
Laying down and still for you like a good girl
I wonder what face you pictured every time you would mount me down and behind, or maybe
It was because you had the premeditated knowledge that you were going to use me like you did
And couldn’t even look me in the eye
I followed you everywhere with a lavender haze blinding my gaze
Intoxicated my inhibitions and everyone who saw that look knew you were not mine
However, I now know that was me, swallowing my shaking intuition from the fact that what I wanted so innocently was never going to come to fruition
It’s doubtful that you will ever learn your lesson
I’ve come to the conclusion that you don’t know how to love, because you don’t know how to love yourself
Admitting your faults to me on your mother’s couch due to the cruel affection of some other female connection you had
And then you conjured up the audacity to trail me along with breadcrumbs of affection that only fed my intuition that you were never a good idea from the start
Those five months I:
- Muted my voice
- Ignored the signs
- Ignored the bodily warnings
- Killed my originality to become the woman I thought you wanted me to be
- Said goodbye to my morals
- Sacrificed my time, body and mind
After you I:
- Found my back bone
- Grew confidence
- Learned how to say no
- Acquired true love
- Detoxed negativity
- Understood my worth
And yes I am sure the question remains;
Why would such an intelligent and successful person like me still be wasting her time and talent writing about a subject such as you –
Because I thought I had paid my dues of being used,
Therefore would be able to spot it –
Though your tactics were different –
Leaving me with the most tainted taste of love, relationships and true affection in my mouth
Spewing poison from past experiences on innocent hearts and gentle hands that wish to hold mine and not take a handful from me, all at once
Did you see me that night?
The same one where I saw you walk in, cowardly
I recognized that “healthy organic” green hoodies from a mile away
Hoodie and a hat – hiding from the fear that came true that I would be there
I’m sure it took you everything to try and not stare
Though you sat yourself down with the carbon knock off copy of myself just perfectly in my peripheral vision
I want to know how you sleep at night knowing that you manifested the love that I lay my head down next too knowing that he is as much mine as I am his
“You deserve so so much better”
I thank you from the bottom of my iron resilience that because of your ghostly silence,
That haunted my days for more than I would like to admit –
Surviving you, shut and boarded all of the rotting windows in the haunted house that homed all of my insecurities and bad habits,
A place that you found power in as you knew how to twist, manipulate and turn me into your bitch
I knew you had sucked all of the affection out of me when I finally started to receive authentic attention that I wrongly projected all of my strongest defenses –
How dare you try to take away my softness
Darling fool,
Didn’t you know –
If you break a poet’s heart
You and your crimes are forever recorded in the legacy of my career
Using you as a lesson for the millions of other women in this world
For not all of them are as experienced as I am
And I would never want repeated offenses to come back and destroy more beautiful faces
______