by Lydia WeinbergerIn this reality I do not remember you, I only ever dated one person, Never got lost in the back of a tall boy's mustang, There was no first semester of college, No semesters after, I did not see you watching me My friend did not flick you off when she saw you staring I have not deleted your number and dozens of emails and I do not save screenshots sent to me by friends, Of you asking me where I live. I do not remember crying everyday, Or shaking while I wait to see you in the patterns, So much more fire than smoke; I did not read your admission of guilt, I did not fear you, Did not avoid buses for fear of being trapped with you, I do not remember the Women's Center, Or being on the phone with the Title IX office, the no contact order, And neither do you when you keep following me. Didn't see you pacing outside of my class. I don't remember because it's so much better to forget, So much easier, Sometimes life takes on a dreamlike quality when I think about you; As though you are just another boogeyman in my countless nightmares, Did I ever tell you I only have nightmares, And now you are in almost all of them. When I'm depressed I lose my ability to track time, and sometimes I think what I went through was a figment of my depression, Or maybe I was just a figment of your mental illness Another thing to obsess over and build paranoia around, Maybe that's why I can't remember, Because the trauma doesn't exist without you. The other day, I fell asleep on a bench and when I woke up you were there, And was I having a nightmare or were you dreaming, Why am I already struggling to remember; I do not call it a violation of my no contact order, rather a violation of the reality my mind has chosen, in which you and all the mistakes that led to you do not exist. I do not remember you Or you never believed I existed, And isn't it all awful, regardless? |
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