I have this thing for mermaids.

There is something about them that I find mezmorsing

A deep connection to these fantasy sea creatures that don’t even exist

It’s like a part of me lights up 

Maybe I was a mermaid in a past life

Maybe it’s that flicker of childish hope that I thought I lost long ago

Maybe it’s what they represent 

Freedom.

That ability to do whatever the fuck you want, follow the current

To just go 

Somedays I daydream of being a mermaid

You know those forced dreams where you just shut your eyes and paint with your eyelids

Stories of princes and water girls with long flowing hair

Of racing a school of clown fish

Of spiraling deeper and deeper without even a twinge of hesitation

That natural giggle I swear all mermaids have

Maybe that’s why

Maybe it’s cause they’re happy

That kind of happy you only see mermaids have

That fearless smile

Days like today I let my mind wander back 

I still can’t believe how much time has passed. Looking down at my hands I still see your freckled pianist hands faintly locked in mine. 

Those Wednesday long lunches and shutting the blinds shying away from your molten eyes. 

I sit here and I struggle to find words to define that feeling, that deep sinking twisting throbbing feeling of total submission into those four letters you first told me as I lay half asleep in your arms. I sketched them on the walls of my skull for months, perfecting the loop of the ‘L’ the slight flick at the end of the ‘E’, personalizing that iconic feeling for something just we shared, like it was our secret from the rest of our not so lucky peers. I remember bitting the inside of my lip when my mother asked me about us, trying to conceal the blatent smile with a painful gnaw, but I think she could taste that sticky sweet potion in the air. 

I’ve always been told that we hold our first love the closest, you’ve left your pedistol since then, I’ve kept an old photo of us in there instead, maybe of my birthday, your hand on my knee under the table while I wore your favorite dress just to make you smile. Or maybe a snapshot of the laugh you made when I called your hazel eyes “brown”, something far less intriguing then you would have liked, but something only I’d state plain and obvious. Or maybe a photo of your blushing temples at my inside out shirt in 4th period, that uncontrollable laughter when I screamed as you hugged me from behind the day I lost my contacts, as I blindly fumbled to see who was grasping me so tightly. Or maybe just that little piece of cardstock that still smells like flowers. I don’t keep what we were in a file box stashed under the bed, or a drawer on my top shelf under racks of winter cable knits, not even in a shattered picture frame in a shoe box. I keep what we were in the air, in each shallow and deep breath I take, through every laughter I inhale the beauty I once encountered, exhaling the doubts laced in it’s fragile state. I let tears slip off the tip of my nose, the first thing they touch as they drip from my bloodshot eyes is it. The potential for that beauty once again.

It’s like painting a masterpiece. 

You can never recreate one that’s been dont with flawless precision.

But you can paint a new one, and with each stroke, a new begining.

I have faith in that four letter word.

And I have you to thank for that.

Sometimes I think the gods of fate sat down to supper and decited to curse me

To punish me for letting you slip through my loose grip

I don’t blame them of course

Sometimes I even think I deserve it

The second chance drowning in pungent liquids and rough hands rattling my worth

The third chance silently creeping out in the dead of night shattering my feeble desire

And it ends there

Third strike you’re out

Out of my teenage fantasies of finding something better, of smiling again

That’s where you come in

I’ve been laughing

And meaning it

Maybe you’re a character, or a phrase, a sentence, or maybe even a full chapter in my book

Maybe you stumbled in for a reason

Or no reason at all

And as I lay in bed calculating every last thing that could lead to our demise

I stop

And I put my faith in fate

fate loves the fearless

And today darling, I am fearless

Seasons change and people grow appart 

We were those balmy October nights 

Those roadtrips with the windows rolled down

That lip curling urge of the sun beating down on me on your sheets

We were comfortable Sunday mornings 

Those days when we just didn’t want to get out of bed

When I never wanted my lips away from yours

We were side splitting laughs with my head on your naked stomach

That perfect mix of an innocence of something and that uncontrollable desire

The feeling of a moment, a flawless moment

We deemed it timing

Or better yet, you scribbled the excuse and plastered it on your forehead

Time seemed to blink the days away

The cold months passed, the morning chill thawed

There she is, sporting the medal of your honor, the race was won

I stood at the sidelines as she waltzed through the red ribbon

Strait up to the podium to claim her ever so convienet prize

The seasons have changed

And it’s warm again

Maybe that’s what made me think of you

That feeling when two sets of eyes meet like they’ve met before

The room was spinning like pirouettes on hardwood floors

I tried to catch my breath but all I could smell was that party & my heart throbbing

I couldn’t tell you what we talked about, but I’d be lying if I said I forgot the moment

When time stood still projected on the football field, tempting to pass but never daring

Knowing that things would never fall the same after this moment

That moment movies surround

That moment mere mortals only dream of

They call it falling for a reason, my arms put up no fight, my legs only running deeper

And there I went, headfirst drowning in a hollywood blockbuster script

Stacking promises on promises building the childish fort of those expectations

My smile could have cracked the grin on even the dullest of dukes

That infectious sheer happiness eluding from every part of my being

Begging to be closer, taking my own dives headfirst into trusted murky waters

I can never regret something that made me so happy

But my dear you can’t play the part that well, I am no fool

We had each other at hello

Those girls that were broken could piece it all together

I was born broken

I thought I was missing that capacity 

But that day I should have broken

And that boy who should make me weak

Does nothing of the sort

Because who said butterflies can turn into pain

Who said those smiles must mean the worst

I let my heart melt

I let my self fall

And I picked my self up

Ready for the next ride

You won’t get it unless you’ve been there

How the sky can feel bright blue and deep black at the same time

How you can feel on top of the world and crushed by your own thoughts at the same time

How tears can taste like a gold metal and sour milk at the same time

I went there when I was 13

Sounds pretty young for that voyage now that I admit it

I went and no one knew

Which I guess made it worse

Sometimes when you’re far and gone, you just want someone to realize

Maybe even miss you

I’m not sure if I ever came home

Or if I would concider where I was home

It’s like I was standing on the state line

One foot here, one foot there

I left last June again

Two feet this time

Full throttle

Full force

And empty…

I don’t know how to explain that feeling

If you’ve been there, you’ll get it

How it feels like the greatest triumph, but then you question why it hurts so much

Why it hurts everyone so much

I haven’t gone back

I can admit my feet have yearned to cross back over but this time I don’t

And I won’t

Everyday a postcard arrives

Mocking me of all I’m missing out on

Everyday I pray I’ll never go back

But if you’ve been there you know how hard it is to say no

How hard it is to stay away

Sometimes I get angry at how you were, as opposed to how you are

Like how you didn’t get any of it. 

Like how I opened up and you just sat there.

As if it were as bland as the evening news.

I used to think no one got me like you did.

Until I realize you never really got me, you just had me.

Had me by the heartstrings thinking I needed you

Thinking that what mattered to me, was what mattered to you

Thinking that whatever made you happy, was what would make me smile

It’s taken a while to pick up the pieces, but I did

And to be totally honest with you,

You were my first love. You knew that. And you abused that.

But today I walk with a purpose, something you never gave me.

I don’t know when it hit me

Or even if it ever did for that matter

I’d call it more of a tap

Or a puff of warm air in my ear

Something subtle

Like the way his eyes crinkle in the corner when he laughs

Like the way he can make me feel like he’s different

LIke the way his smile creeps into the corners of my own

I guess that’s what it was

Subtle

A subtle realization that the boy I met four years ago was not the one sitting beside me

That moment of aceptance that he’s grown

Grown into 6’1 of lingering hugs and unexpected winks

Grown out of basketball uniforms and into a second skin

I always knew we’d grow up

I just never imagined I’d want us to grow together

Since the day I grew past cooties I saw it

Those flawless 10 year olds being chased by love struck boys

Passed by

Turned into attitude abundent preteens flipping ‘Rachel’ bobs in the mall

Passed by

Turned to over worked high schoolers clasped hand in hand with unsupressed smiles

Passed by

I was never the girl they wanted

I was never the girl they fell in love with

I was never anything more than a passing lust

I was never good enough

I guess I’m just not good enough

More than  notch in the bed post

More than a drunken friday night

More than one of the many

More than awkward sweaty bodies pushed together

More than that juvinial desire to get laid

I was never more

I was never more than a meaningless night

I was never more than a tool to satisfy

That longing to be wanted

That desire to finally be good enough