i'm tired of this world, but what do i know?

7 t h g r a d e

7th grade
wake me up -ed sheeran

this is for you old friend
im sorry that I lost you
so much so that I don't even think about high school
I think of when I first met you
Before you could learn my flaws
Before you could realize my mistakes
Before
When my only excuse for being an idiot and saying things that I didn't mean
Was because I wasn't even thirteen yet

12
the golden age
introducing agony and new friends

i remember when I had the whole world in my hands
When I rode bus 27
And I sat next to Kate
And there were holes in the seat
We'd poke through them like sex
laughing and shrieking while waiting for the loud kids to get off next
I remembered when I used to write fake notes to ride the bus home with my best friend
We'd sign parents consent
But it was all bullshit
I had been doing forgery since back then
Writing notes for all of those kids
Who just wanted to have the best afternoon of their life
Because we'd thrive
After school
Dancing in your living room and walking to get food
She always did her homework
I was the simple type
I would watch and pretend to help
I was always too dumb for her
She'd end up feeling bad
And say
Things like
You can copy mine

You probably thought I didn't care
Because I never seemed to care about anything
Not to go into the wound
But this one runs deep

It's starts
In my math class seat
Saying I was fat
On multiple occasions
Making me feel unwanted
Because that's what my body meant
Eventually after getting cut open by so many kids
You just get used to it

Her mom used to say it
It made me realize what love really is
Because I would cry when she would cry
Because I felt it
I felt that pain too
We bonded in that kind of way

We bonded in scars
We bonded in attempts

All too much sadness
For two twelve year old kids

I gave you my ideas
And you promised that my failure didn't make me a bad person
That inside of me there was intelligence

Even when i didn't know how to use quotations
You still read my stories
Even when my grammar was wrong
And I couldn't spell definitely

And I always typed defiantly
Shamefully
My smart best friend
Always helped me to learn something

Believe it or not
She still crafts the very context of these manuscripts
I leave them for her at the lake and I watch them dissolve in the rain
The ink smears
Like it did for my first love

But this hurts oh so differently
You weren't the one to kiss me or call me baby
Relationships are different

She was like my sister
You were the one that saved my life
The one that stayed by my side
The one to always make me smile
The one to re open my eyes
The one to give me the reassurance I needed to know that

Even though I didn't get good grades
That I was still smart
Even though I wasn't as skinny as I wanted to be
I was still strong
I was still me

So we
Would listen to childish and frank like religion
We would play with her dog and play piano for hours
I mostly was jealous because I could never play like her
She played like Luke in Cherry wine
But who am I kidding
She played better

She inspired many characters
And she became one
Without having to change anything to be a likeable protagonist
Because she was loveable in real life
And that's just how it is

She was the glimmer of positivity in my life
I wonder when we stopped being positive
I wonder if there was a specific day when I could have put a stop to it

I know I always reminisce
But with friends so great
How could I forget?

I'm not proud of it
I lost them

That's just what happened

I wonder if it was all my fault
Every since October
I have been convinced that it only ever has been
Words haunt me
I'm up at night
I'm crying in his arms again

Can't find reality
Losing touch
Losing life

Dissociating
In order to find

That glimmer of light
My body is in the present

But my head is reminiscent
I am
On her trampoline
Drinking with all of my friends again
I am
Playing video games until 5am
I am
Sitting in the passenger side of her car again
Watching her dance to spooky scary skeletons

I am lost in the moments I can't get back
So as time goes on
I don't care how it makes me look

i know everyone thinks i don't care about much
and I know all of the twitter posts in the world will assure you that im all of these non conclusive psychological insults

so ill say them
cause im not afraid of them
because i am not them

im not toxic
im not a manipulator
im not mean
im not controlling
im not a gaslighter
im not deceptive
im not evil

im kaylin
and i have been these things
but they aren't me

im just me
i like poetry and philosophy
i still like gambino and frank
i have a boyfriend, but i still feel like im that awkward gay kid no one will get
and the truth is
i really wished you were able to meet him
to me
both of you are
so patient
and so kind

i wonder if you would've liked him
it hurts
and ive gone off on so many tangents

i wouldn't even know that word
if you hadn't taught me it

saddest thing is you'll never read this
but ill write it to you anyways

i wrote a 102 poems for a girl that didn't even like me

i can spare 103 for one of my favorite people I'd ever met
my old friend

i know you don't live in my present tense
so every few nights
i just go back to when

we rode bikes everywhere
and nobody even cared about anything
but dinner
and getting a boyfriend

we mirrored everything
we did it all together
im proud of us
im proud of you

but it's sad now

you heard it once at your grad party
you'll never hear it from me again