𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫

𝐩𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭

I met you when I
was sixteen.
We were sitting in
a crowded room
and I was introduced to
you in an old fashioned
kind of way.
we made up excuses
to see one another and you
fell in love with my singing,
not me.
I should have known it,
but I didn't.
I wore a scarf that day and you
grabbed the end for a moment
and I held onto that
end of my scarf for weeks just to
be reminded of you.
I hit keys on pianos to ignore
being hit on by you and I drowned
myself in perfume I
bought from Walmart for Christmas.
I sang songs about love and
imagined your flushed face underneath
dimming street lights as I did.
I would scream monologues into
the void of my heart which could not ever
be filled.
I placed my head upon your hardened
shoulder and breathed in the minty smell
of your detergent drenched shirt.
You didn't know it, but
I took home your beanie just to be
reminded of the way you smelled and
the way you felt between my
fingertips.
I fell in love with the feeling of
your fingertips drifted along mine
and the sense of your eyes on me.
I fell in love with touches.
I fell in love with empty aching
and a deafening scream that begged
to be loved.
I fell in love with desire and lust.
I fell in love with the dark.
and as the music dies, I can still
feel the fall.
the pavement that scratched my
hands and the reality that
awoke me rudely and abruptly.
I fell in love with you
only to fall onto the rock hard pavement
beneath me.

written on: august 23rd, 2020