burning bridgesA Poem by AugustineI know this story by heart because I’ve danced with it before. Not asking for a sequel ‘cause I just wanna know: what are you gonna do with your midnight memories of us on a dull basement floor when you’re sober? Are you gonna regret touching my elbows like you did? Word’s getting around; I revived our story and I told them how it ended. I even made friends with your ex two days ago. Yeah I’m ashamed I was ever jealous; she’s said all the same things about you that I have, that I’ve heard from one of your old brothers. I didn’t look at you in the sticky kitchen starry- eyed because my feelings were coming back. No, I saw what we might’ve been could’ve been and thank God I trusted the alarmed voice that showed up in poems from last semester. I’ll never let them see the light of day; just glad I listened to the voice that kept saying, “go go go” when my honey-mooned heart kept saying, “stay, my love”. So it wasn’t you who was scared when our hips met each other; it was me all along. I don’t trust things that are born in the dark. Makes me wonder what was real and what we were lying about. I hope you’re happy now; hope you match with someone good. Maybe you’ll look at her one day and wonder why she trembles and stumbles over her words because she’s not like me; she’s not translating Arabic-French thoughts. Or maybe you’ll think about laugh about comment on how she was baptized in hay and farmland and I was born from immigrants. She’s your American Dream and good for you if that’s what you wanted. But she won’t be like me. I guess I’m human for wondering: when you talk to her, look at her, are you thinking, “So this is what it feels like to come home” or are you sitting in the dark realizing that everything you ever wanted is already gone? Guess it doesn’t matter now. I’ve found my home in someone else’s heartbeat, and he tells me I’m fucked up about you because I burned the bridge between me and you thinking no one else I knew would ever build something from the ashes. I know he’s right. And he knows how the stars will go out before I ever think about not being at his side. You haven’t heard from me in months, and I’m doing better than I ever was because I know I did at least two things right: leaving you and remembering my home’s with him. © 2023 Augustine |
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1 Review Added on August 26, 2023 Last Updated on October 17, 2023 Tags: teenage love, college, party, sex, flirting, nostalgia, love, falling in love, greek life Author
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