Honeybee

by Trista Mateer

You are the first thing in a long time that has made me want to write poetry again.

She does not remind me of anything; everything reminds me of her.

I’m sorry for trying to love you before I knew what I was doing. The next person I kiss is never going to touch the parts of me that you held onto.

I wrote you more poems than anyone else I ever kissed. I still held your hand after you broke my heart. You told me that love meant giving and giving and giving but at some point, all the plants drown. You never told me that part. We outgrew each other in angry, uncoordinated ways and I’m sorry for that.

Some people will leave. Some people are born flight risks. It is no shortcoming of yours that they cannot keep their feet on the ground.

Some people will leave you. It will have everything to do with you and nothing to do with outside circumstances. You cannot sugarcoat it. You cannot dress it up and make it feel sweet or soft or warm. And it’s going to hurt you. I know your instinct will be to beg them to stay, to unpack their bags for them, to curl up by their wandering feet—but people are going to leave you. That is okay too.

After it was over, had been over for months, I told a friend that if you ever called, I would come running. And he said to me: well, I guess it isn’t over then.

Now I can say there are people I’ve slept with just because we hurt the same way.

I swear every poem I write for you is the last one. I swear this is the last one.

I still wake up with things to tell you. One day, I won’t.

I can’t remember why we stopped writing love letters and started crying drunkenly into the phone.

Look, I’m not saying I’m still in love with you or anything. Things can be important even though they’re not important in the same way anymore. You still occupy space inside of me somewhere.

sometimes when I want to text you about it, I write about it instead. You are either sick of reading about yourself by now or you don’t pay attention to my poems anymore. I don’t know

I’ve realized that it’s not as important to remember where I’ve learned things, as it is to just learn them. I don’t always have to trace everything back to its source.