Not Pretty (poem)

 

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It was hard to watch your taillights disappear

as I stood there at two o’clock in the morning

the stale taste of angry words burning the back of my throat

held in and swallowed down

because you cut me off, shut me down, and walked away

For the last week or so I’ve mourned you

but you’re not dead – you’re just gone

the conversations we’d had, the times we laughed, the intimate things I told you

are now gone away from me and I don’t know how to be

It’s not like you were my lover

you didn’t know me that way but that made this more pure

there was just the need to be together

and i showed you more than my body ever could

you were my friend

But you hit me with your drive by goodbye

your words – bullets, shattering my perception of you

and all the angry shit I want to say just stumbles

out of my mouth and onto the floor unused and tired

before they melt into nothingness

I’m hurt and I miss you and I’ve never felt this naked before

you were a constant voice in my head

and now all I can do is hear myself talk

but I can’t do that again – even if your headlights were to wash over me now

since i haven’t moved from the spot I was in

I’m too afraid you’d leave when I am not pretty