Gone

Gone 7/7/11


You told me I’d be okay
if ever you were gone.
Words from a waning mother to a forlorn daughter.
Words that have resonated with me for years.
Echoing back and forth in the grottos of my detested psyche.

You told me I’d be okay
if ever you were gone.
Said with such a veracious tone, I almost believed it myself.
Said in the tone of maternal love that I will always associate with your voice.
That melody I immerse myself in day after day.

You told me I’d be okay
if ever you were gone.
So many conversations spoken before that dreadful day.
So many words expressed between our solemn eyes
until our salient conversations abruptly reverberated into a noxious silence.

But you told me I’d be okay
if ever you were gone!!
I wish I believed you.
I wish you were right.
I wish you were here.

Because I’m nowhere near okay
now that you are
gone.

10 Things I Hate About You

10 things I wish I would have known 10 years ago

The man you are dating is gay, sweetie.

You will not get married by 23.

You will not have kids by 30.

Your dream of moving back to Charlotte will be hindered by your sudden, mockable fear of solitude. It will hit you like a train.

Your bad luck with men will continue. (and get even worse through the years, if you can even imagine that!)

You will be your own and only company night after night.

Reading PEOPLE magazine will become the only thing on your Friday night's schedule.

You will find that there is a little bit of solace in solitude while living in Atlanta, Ga.

You will desperately wish your married friends were single and that your single friends were married.

You will drive yourself insane, slowly but surely, not necessarily for not knowing what you want from life, but from your life not knowing what to do with your crazy self.

Stranger

I was looking through poems tonight and found one I completely forgot all about. I hate that as time passes, it seems to take some "friends" along with it on its journey. I hate that good friends somehow, someway turn into aquaintances. It happens so quickly, yet I seem to notice our fallout so slowly. I had such good times with them back in the day, but now its like they can't even remember my name. I started stiching memories with them...years ago...why am I always the one left with the half-stitched quilt? I do have a tendency to not let people too close to me. When I tell you I have been hurt in past friendships, I mean I have been shattered. Completely broken. Completely blindsided. I just hate- despise- that I ALWAYS end up the one who seems to hurt the most. The one affected. The one who sits by the phone, waits for them to come to me, yet I'm always the one who gives in and goes to them. I'm almost 30 and can't seem to get over what happened to me 14 years ago. I tried forgiveness, it worked for a little bit, but then I was forgotten----again. And again. Guess it's time I realize the vailidity in the statement: "As I age, I find that my friends grow fewer and fewer, but those that remain become truer and truer." Thank God for those strangers who became my true friends. But I can honestly say that I am not thankful (and thoroughly confused) about those friends of mine who chose to become my strangers.


Stranger

We were stuck in a flash of light.
Moving swiftly.
In and out.
Over and above
the rest of them.
Plastered to each others’ minds.
Never alone.
Always together.
We moved.
Fast.
You moved me.
Quickly.
I loved our flash in time.

Blinded by reality.
You pushed me aside from the side I was on.
You left me in the corner.
Alone.
Suddenly confused.
You knew me too well to become a stranger.
Yet, that’s all you are now-
not even an acquaintance.
An ubiquitous stranger.

Ironic, how close two people can be
and how much it can hurt tearing the last part of the stitch away.
Ironic, how much irony
you can find in realizing that “confidant”,
that genuine friend,
has forlornly become your
strangest stranger.