middle school beloved!
do i dream about you? yes.
you make my senseless, subconscious self weak with mirth. i'll let out giggles in my sleep but my body is tense. worried you will set fire in my hand and leave me holding your bitter embers that will fall through the cracks of my fingers as i fall to my knees (didn't this happen before?) we're back in seventh grade and you're sitting next to me in social studies and you're jealous of the boy who calls me pretty under instagram posts. i tell that boy all about you and i hate myself more than ever.
in ninth grade you were gone (but forever in my dreams of course!) and i always thought you'd come back in the end. and there you were six months later, back, with a girlfriend. you saw me once to make her jealous, we walked past your old house in my town and you were telling me how much you hate your new life.
as swift as can be i'm fifteen and at the other side of the street and you're speeding over with your bike. the both of us nervous but you see, i'm as fragile as ever. you're buying me gummy worms and vanilla ice cream cones with rainbow sprinkles and all of a sudden a three pack of condoms at the local 7/11 up my block. we're walking back to my house and i'm telling you how much i hate myself and you're sad/for once/because you know it's genuine.
you know i'm not your one time baby. you always come back (but for now only in my dreams) and each time i write poems about our failed love, poems you don't read. i tell you songs to listen to that you skip over (don't worry, i do too now) and i read you my favorite book where the characters remind me of us (but you're too absentminded to notice).
