my mind is spinning

with the same old thoughts

making another circle around the beaten track

of questions without answers

and fears without hope to quiet them

 

i am broken record

but the turntable just won’t quit

 

i thought you were different

but i don’t think i can look past

what i’ve seen

 

i think i deserve more

than the scraps you throw me

i think i should have more than your kindness

half the time

 

being near you

is a coin toss

heads: you’ll smile and laugh and drag me

headfirst into love

tails: you’ll give me no more than the time of day,

yank the world out from under me with a

blank, unforgiving stare

 

you terrify me

and exhaust me

understanding you is akin

to trying to predict a tornado’s velocity

fruitless, and nearly impossible

 

i’m tired of giving more than i get

of extractions rather than interactions

you’d think i would have learned from the last boy

or the last ten before him

 

people like you are the reason why

i am no longer a starry-eyed,

flower-petal-plucking fantasist

you and him and him and him and him

have turned me into a scatter-brained cynic

who stands for nothing and falls for everything

 

i wish love would bump into me on the street

sweep me off my feet before i even realized

there was a sense of gravity to lose

 

i thought that could be you

 

i’m no longer placated by the oft-offered excuse

of “boys will be boys”

accompanied by a tired smile and a slowly shooken head

filled with phrases like “men are from mars and women are from venus”

 

boys should fucking grow up

look past their peter pan fantasies

learn how to talk and text and treat people right

express their feelings without fear of smight

 

why should girls have to pull all the weight

carry each conversation on shoulders

those same boys consider too frail and delicate

 

i’m so fed up with it all

the tedious text conversations

and the lack of effort on his plate

and the word “great”

 

for once

god, just once

i want a boy to say:

 

“you are a national treasure,

the eighth wonder of the world just begging

to be discovered

 

to know you would to be an explorer,

unearthing something unlike anything before,

a miracle made flesh,

a legend given breath

 

to learn the delicate details of your character

would be comparable to

arthur retrieving excalibur from the stone,

a knight of camelot claiming the holy grail,

ponce de leon discovering his fountain of youth

 

you are truly a new world

every quirk and eccentricity a paragon

more precious than gold”

 

i wrote that for you

said i’d chart a map of each intricate element of

your golden standard soul

 

fondly depicted you as a temple to tradition

as the epitome of greek architecture,

your pillars of truth and ambition

upheld by a foundation of intrinsic goodness

 

love-sickenly reminisced over that night,

the hours painted silver by the light of your laugh

and the glint of your wink

and the shimmer of your quietly content smile

 

thinking about it now

makes my stomach twist

with confusion and loss

 

because where did that girl go

where is her reckless hope and her love,

freely given and ostensibly felt

 

oh, right

you killed her

-we are stuck in the storm we were born to ignore