Upended
December 26th, 2017
I like to believe that I have known pain.
In my almost twenty years of existence,
I have watched loved ones fall away like
crackling leaves from slumbering trees and
have seen the seams of my closest friends’ realities
cut away and dismantled by
people who only spoke in lies when they said
three of the heaviest and
most dangerous words in the English language.
I have given away my independence and security to
those who led me to believe that
I would be safe in my decision of entrusting them with
secrets I had barely admitted to myself.
Anyone who knows me can see that
Trust and I don’t go hand in hand and
I risk sounding like a jaded pessimist but
there are only so many times you can
watch the same scars reopen and heal again and again before you begin to question
your own sense of judgment.
In my almost twenty years,
I like to believe that I have witnessed the darker side of love and relationships,
of giving your heart and soul away to someone else and
trusting that they know what the hell they’re doing with it.
But,
despite this sense of trepidation and the sting of
half-healed wounds,
despite the obvious fear of commitment and of opening myself up again,
I let you in and watched you burrow under my skin,
finding your home between taped rips and
splinted collar bones, as if
you had always been a part of them.
It was strange just how quickly I fell in love.
Before you came around, it had been years since
someone had unsettled me so deeply,
since someone had altered my sense of reality and
upended it until what was once structured
resembled a patchwork quilt with crooked, frayed seams and ragged corners,
as if the pieces were stitched together in a random weave that
had no sense or order or pattern.
In my almost twenty years,
I don’t think I have experienced pain quite like this.
Every day I awake to an empty bed and
miss when I would wake up at 3 AM from
twirling and rolling through my insomniac gymnastics
only to see you breathing steadily,
in and out,
1, 2, 3,
peacefully at ease.
I miss blaring country music at 12 AM after dropping off friends,
a genre I once refused to stomach,
the streets slowly seeping into the sleep that always remains elusive to me.
I miss being your brown eyed girl,
miss watching the steam sneak from beneath coffee cup lids as we sipped by gurgling fountains,
students swimming by through bustling lives.
I miss the shifting of gears and the smell of bike grease as we clean our trusty steeds,
miss talking for hours on end,
the minutes slipping by like lightning seconds,
miss sitting in heated cars as winter began curling icicle arms around us,
the engine of my ancient SUV rattling beneath the bass of San Fermin,
talking about the demons I thought I left behind and
the ones that live in your mind.
I miss knowing that I had a safe space in which to escape when
the insanity that had become by reality resembled a tsunami wave
Threatening to rattle the home I had built in our stolen moments.
In my almost twenty years,
I like to believe that I have known pain.
In my almost twenty years,
I like to believe that I have seen the darker side of love and relationships.
But, in my almost twenty years,
I still don’t know how to deal with the pain of
losing a best friend nor what to do when
you fall in love with someone who has upended
everything you thought you knew about it in the first place.
December 26th, 2017
I like to believe that I have known pain.
In my almost twenty years of existence,
I have watched loved ones fall away like
crackling leaves from slumbering trees and
have seen the seams of my closest friends’ realities
cut away and dismantled by
people who only spoke in lies when they said
three of the heaviest and
most dangerous words in the English language.
I have given away my independence and security to
those who led me to believe that
I would be safe in my decision of entrusting them with
secrets I had barely admitted to myself.
Anyone who knows me can see that
Trust and I don’t go hand in hand and
I risk sounding like a jaded pessimist but
there are only so many times you can
watch the same scars reopen and heal again and again before you begin to question
your own sense of judgment.
In my almost twenty years,
I like to believe that I have witnessed the darker side of love and relationships,
of giving your heart and soul away to someone else and
trusting that they know what the hell they’re doing with it.
But,
despite this sense of trepidation and the sting of
half-healed wounds,
despite the obvious fear of commitment and of opening myself up again,
I let you in and watched you burrow under my skin,
finding your home between taped rips and
splinted collar bones, as if
you had always been a part of them.
It was strange just how quickly I fell in love.
Before you came around, it had been years since
someone had unsettled me so deeply,
since someone had altered my sense of reality and
upended it until what was once structured
resembled a patchwork quilt with crooked, frayed seams and ragged corners,
as if the pieces were stitched together in a random weave that
had no sense or order or pattern.
In my almost twenty years,
I don’t think I have experienced pain quite like this.
Every day I awake to an empty bed and
miss when I would wake up at 3 AM from
twirling and rolling through my insomniac gymnastics
only to see you breathing steadily,
in and out,
1, 2, 3,
peacefully at ease.
I miss blaring country music at 12 AM after dropping off friends,
a genre I once refused to stomach,
the streets slowly seeping into the sleep that always remains elusive to me.
I miss being your brown eyed girl,
miss watching the steam sneak from beneath coffee cup lids as we sipped by gurgling fountains,
students swimming by through bustling lives.
I miss the shifting of gears and the smell of bike grease as we clean our trusty steeds,
miss talking for hours on end,
the minutes slipping by like lightning seconds,
miss sitting in heated cars as winter began curling icicle arms around us,
the engine of my ancient SUV rattling beneath the bass of San Fermin,
talking about the demons I thought I left behind and
the ones that live in your mind.
I miss knowing that I had a safe space in which to escape when
the insanity that had become by reality resembled a tsunami wave
Threatening to rattle the home I had built in our stolen moments.
In my almost twenty years,
I like to believe that I have known pain.
In my almost twenty years,
I like to believe that I have seen the darker side of love and relationships.
But, in my almost twenty years,
I still don’t know how to deal with the pain of
losing a best friend nor what to do when
you fall in love with someone who has upended
everything you thought you knew about it in the first place.