List(less)

A Poem by Austin_Meehan

List(less)

1) Loving you was like taking a rusted knife down the skin of my hope,

And slowly flaying it, approximately moving it only two inches every three minutes.

2) If I could’ve I would’ve broken your hands, into as many pieces as I possibly could,

The moment you wouldn’t take your hands off of me,

Only allowed under the guise of “This is the way she shows love to you.”

3) Trying to get me to let me to love you to love me to love you,

Was like trying to grow an orange on an apple tree,

It just wasn’t going to happen.

3) The lines blurred halfway through the relationship,

And my tongue always felt too heavy,

When saying I love you too.

3) Trying to get your attention when it was something that I liked,

Or something that was important to me,

Was like going to the beach and vacuuming up sand,

And then putting it into my car and my house,

Trying to get rid of it over the following months.

I could never get all of it at once,

And sometimes I still find bits and pieces waiting for me,

‘Cause you’re still here.

3) But there will forever be a small part of me that is just too naive not to love you,

Not the person that you’ve turned into over these few years,

No, the person I could walk into the gym with laughing,

The person I could continue to laugh with even after I got home,

Who would notice my absence and when I wasn’t in a room that I shouldn’t have been in?

4) You may have changed and that’s granted just like the tides,

But I think that maybe if they, the tides, could actually have a conscious,

They’d always remember where they came from.

4) Just like how I remember where you came from,

How we were both holding onto a little corner of hope.

That maybe you’ll wake up and realize that what you’ve become isn’t good.

4) But a crystal castle can shatter.

5) I knew that when I looked into your eyes and that candle flame wasn’t there,

I should’ve left.

6) Remember when I asked you how it would feel if I did this,

And you said, “Not good.”

And then you turned around and did the same thing I didn’t do.

And then you had the audacity to get mad at me.

And because I am easily intimidated you used that to your advantage.

And soon enough, you had me crying and crumpled, apologizing to you.

I remember that.

7) When you said you loved me, your lips were lined with sugar,

Ants were cascading off your tongue.

Every word you said was alive and stinging even when it was supposed to be accusingly soothing.

8) When someone that tell you that dating somebody with a birthday the day before yours is “goals” it’s not. And it never will be. Because when their pH number starts to erode because of how acidic and toxic they’ve become,

Don’t listen, it’s a literal trap and I urge you to get out of that cage,

Because you may think that stained glass is pretty when it catches the light,

But it’ll never be pretty when it’s coated in your blood.

9) I don’t hate you.

I don’t hate you,

It’s been a broken record repeating in my head,

And this sad song will keep on playing till I’m dead,

Because I know there are two sides.

10) I don’t hate you and I don’t love you anymore,

Not like I used to,

It’s like loving a dead person,

I love them, and they’ll never be close to me again.

They won’t keep me from moving on because I know they’d want me to be happy.

Now who you are is just someone who graces my keys.

My nightmares and my pens.

I told you once on a day that wasn’t good for you,

That if I had to write about all of the things that I love about you,

My hand would fall off.

But I would.

10) And even when I just wanted to see you smile,

That was when I had a sixteen year old’s marred, already abused and bruised,

Taken for granted and taken advantage of heart.

I loved you with the last of my innocent and complete openness.

But now when I write about you,

There isn’t a glimmer of warmth on a frost bitten day.

And there’s not a single cascaded bit of happiness.

11) Thank you for reinforcing my appreciation of the little things that people do for me.

And thank you for showing me how I should really be treated.

Even though there were easier ways to do so.

But sometimes if you’re especially hard headed you gotta get hurt a little to know you should let someone go.

Or even give up on the person they’ve become.

© 2018 Austin_Meehan

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Featured Review

Chryiss

Bravo! You chose an interesting style to number each stanza as a 'list' in reference to the title and yet added that 'less' part to become the word which described what the love had become. Each numbered 'reason,' as I interpreted it, had a different mood that layered on top of one another in order to end on this ambivalent feeling of hate/love and yet not hate or love yet tiredness and hopefulness that the person you remember would return and or face their current selves.
I really enjoy poems like these which describes the duality of relationships and emotions, and you did this in novel way. The different lengths of each number also built up those layers to reinforce the impact of the one liners. I think that's the best placed and impactful "I don't hate you," line I've come across yet.
Lastly, I also liked your similes; they were unusual yet relevant and visually clear. The pH and vacuuming sand came off as subtle dry humor. The beginning, in particular, took me somewhat off guard, but that pairing of a shocking start to a softer ending was well done.

Posted 5 Years Ago

2 of 2 people found this review constructive.

5 Years Ago

Thank you for such a lengthy and put together review! Like I said on your other post, let me know if.. read more

Reviews

Stephanie

A painfully beautiful poem. Very well written. I felt absolutely heartbroken reading this, as if I was the other person you were referring to in this poem. The emotions are exceptionally raw and that's what I think made this flow so effortlessly.
Wording is great. Title is clever. And the way you convey your thoughts and feelings.. Amazing.