Charlotte

I fell in love with you through the tinted shades of my long-lost childhood.

My love for you has boomeranged from adolescent dreams to adult superstitions.

You have been the one constant in the entirety of my nomadic life.

My heart flutters the second I see your skyline peak out from behind the horizon.

I breathe in giddiness every time I cross your state line.

Your skies seem bluer and your flowers smell better than the others.

There’s just something about you that has always captivated me.

You are undeniably the closest to “home” I have ever felt.

So, that is why I can’t help but wade here in your pool of disheartening incredulity.

You deceptively teased me with such tedious reciprocation

that all I can do is watch the pieces of my heart embed into your soil.

I was always the first to notice your welcome sign,

but never felt truly welcomed, even in the multiple times I kept returning to you throughout the years.

I have arbitrarily misread your signs this whole time.

I had worn out your welcome mat a long time ago.

You never wanted me here.

You never will.

You’re just another place I don’t fit in.

What a lost cause I am!

Just a rugged hitchhiker, inanely searching for a place that I can finally call home.

Branches

5/11/2020

“Just hang on!” They tell me,

while holding tight onto their own branches filled with luscious leaves and sumptuous fruit.

Their branches’ circumference easily withstands the heaviness of their burdens,

not even drooping in the slightest.

They sway effortlessly within the wind of their sentiments,

never battered or losing even the tiniest of leaves in the storms.

Their branches are legitimately alluring.

So strong. So confident. So durable.

I can understand why they hold on-

they have no reason to let go.

“Just hang on!” They tell me,

trying their hardest to help my diminutive branch gain some kind of girth.

Their surplus of leaves disrupt their view of mine sometimes,

just quick enough for them to get a glimpse of relief that at least I’m still there.

What they can’t see is how fast my grip is steadily sliding.

I want to hold on, I do,

but I’m tired.

So tired of watching my sweat turn into blood pooling into the tips of my fingers.

So exhausted of having nothing but disintegrating slivers of branches to hold on to.

I’m slipping and I can’t help it.

My branches have drooped too far,

they are breaking.

This is all beyond my control.

I have come to the end of my branch.

There is nothing left to do

but to let go.

“Just hang on!” They say.

“But for what?!?” I scream.

The Door

5/6/2020

I grew tired of keeping it open all the time.

The draft from his ghost was nearly unbearable.

Although it seemed but a breeze to some,

it had a tendency to bring me to my knees

every single time it wisped past my memory.

My hands grew calloused with splinters from the wood of his disdain.

My feet became bloodied with blisters from being the wedge between his abandonments.

My reactions intensified with immediate palpitations from the daggers in his mendacious eyes.

My core is becoming weaker by the minute trying to keep you from opening this creaky door.

With all of my might, I hold myself against it,

sweat pouring from my skin.

My battle going unnoticed,

with the wood stains beginning to camouflage my despondency.

I am slowly losing this fight,

while you maniacally knock at a tune too catchy to ignore.

I just can’t.

I can’t open myself up to you,

because I know the second that I do,

your curious knocking will instantaneously stop in absolute disgust

as I reveal the woman I really am just waiting

behind the door.

The Thread

5/3/2020
For Mom:

We were once woven so tightly.

Wrapped up into a cozy, familiar blanket

that kept us warm from the inside out.

Your consistent threads of validation intertwined

with your needles of grace that maintained us as the devoted unit

we would always be known for.

We were once woven so tightly.

Becoming a well-preserved heirloom

passed down from many different patches.

Your jovial and cordial thread sewing us together,

making our blanket unbelievably spectacular

with you at the center of it all.

We were once woven so tightly,

but your perpetual weaving suddenly took its toll.

Your hands became weaker,

with knuckles too inflamed to add any more of your glorious threads.

And just as we were becoming confident in our blanket,

your essential force became unexpectedly absent,

leaving us without a pattern to follow.

We were once woven so tightly,

but you were the thread that,

once loosened,

we all came undone.

Good Enough

Good Enough 5/3/2020

I think I’m pretty

enough.

I think I’m funny

enough.

I think I can carry a conversation well

enough.

I think I’m a good catch.

Well, a good enough catch.

I think I’m bound to find him one day. I know he will be

enough.

I’m crammed in between the corners of my imagination and reality.

Straddling the lines between just right and almost there.

Wedged between convincing beginnings and suspicious conclusions.

Balancing acts of showing my true colors and watching everyone strain to see its rainbow.

I think I’ve shown

enough.

I think I’ve dreamt long

enough.

I think I’ve done

enough.

I think I’ve always been almost

enough.

I think I’ve been through

enough

to know that I’ve had

enough

of wondering why being

enough

is never good

enough.

The Back Burner

4/17/2020

You cook up your lies with subconscious intentions,
all the while having me believe you were acknowledging my existence.
I can feel your forged validation beginning to steam me to my core,
its fog slowly clouding my perception of you.
I can feel your irrational enigmas splatter upon my face,
reluctantly knowing that their stains will never wash out of my facade.
Your heat intensifies by the minute,
forcing me to bubble over with thoughts of assumed acceptance.
In order to stop the spurting of any kind of recognition,
you capriciously grab a lid to block me out.
Condensation builds as fast as your rejection,
as I abruptly crack under its pressure.
And then, there you go again,
evasively touching me,
to only move me farther away from you.
Just close enough to still feel your incredulous heat,
and yet far enough away for me to not be burned by it.

Neighbor

4/17/2020

Walking up the stairs,
avoiding all eye contact.
I just want to make it inside
before I break down.
Opening the door,
immediately falling to my knees.
I heave out all of my insecurities one by one,
tearing myself into a million more pieces in the process.
It’s impossible to explain:
that feeling of just wanting to be seen,
to just be heard,
to just be acknowledged,
to just be wanted,
but knowing you’ll only be just an insignificant ghost to them.
I crawl to my bed,
crying so hard that my body permanently cramps into a despondent curl.
I can’t help but raucously moan out my loneliness,
in hopes that the walls between us are proofing out the sound of my dejection.
All I can do is watch these desolate vibrations descend through the floor.
Hoping among all hopes,
that she can’t hear my weeping
every single night.