Short(ish) poems

E

My mom always hated when I never wore dresses.

She bought so many for me. I wore them sometimes, to see her smile, but I felt wrong.

When sixth grade started I joined the Rowing team. It was the only sport near us, and the only one that let girls wear shorts.

My mom kept asking if there were any cute boys there, any that caught my interest. I said no. She seemed mad. She said she wouldn't be mad if I had a crush, but when I repeated my answer she just left.

I don't get it.

Walking into practice one day, I set my bag down and turned around to see my team huddled together. It was the first practice of my second season and our coach was blabbering on about the practice days and uniforms. I wasn't really listening. Next to me was this beautiful girl — dark curly hair with blond undertones, freckles adorning her perfect cheeks and brown eyes that crinkled as she rolled her eyes at the coach.

She talked about how the coach said the same last season and it was getting boring. I just listened. And so became our routine. I would get there slightly before her with a small pack of sour patch kids — her favorite — and waited like a dog until she came back.

My mom asked me if I found any boys cute. I said no. All I could think about was her. Cute brown eyes that reflected in the sun like dew drops; perfect lips that she chewed on time to time when she was focusing.

This is wrong. Girls shouldn't feel this way towards other girls. It's wrong. I repeat that mantra in my head over and over when we meet. I stop giving her sour patch kids. She asks my if anything's wrong, and I just shrug her off.

I hate this. I miss her.

I miss her smile, I miss her laugh. I miss the way she mindlessly hummed when listening to music, I miss the way she always somehow got hurt. I miss the way she cared.

I miss her.

"I miss you." Was all I texted. It was true.

She responded immediately. "I miss you too, love. You okay?"

We texted nonstop after that. I felt so guilty. Months and months of messages, hanging out together, it was the best seven months of my life. I finally asked her out — of course she said yes — which made us hang out even more. I told my mom we were just having bestie time. She said she did the exact same thing when she was our age. Me and dove just laughed and laughed until our lungs hurt, the mascara I had put on her was smeared from her crying laughing.

I woke up, feeling next to my bed stand for my phone, only to find nothing. Sheer panic rose through me. I ran down the stairs to question my mom but she was already screaming, throwing, hitting. I was an abomination; a devil, sent from satan himself to try and corrupt that poor sweet innocent baby.

They let me be buried in a suit. The funeral was a closed casket — nobody wanted to see what she had done. Days, weeks, months she sat by my grave. I wish I could reach out to her — tell her I'm okay. Tell her not to worry, and it's fine to move on. But I can't. Being dead sucks.

- a shitty writer

(Mostly true story)