𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐋𝐘 ʰᵉᵐᵐⁱⁿᵍˢ ✓

QUESTIONS AT YOUR DOORSTEP

i knew you to be someone of
boyish grins and perfect grades,
who hated any sport, and
knew everbody's names.

you knew i was a leaf,
easily swayed by the slightest of breeze,
and you left my life just as you came in
with such melancholic ease.

i forgot about your grins
for what seemed like years,
carried on with my ignorance
and perfectly carved fears.

i knew i was a traitor to those
with only good intentions,
but i never saw a difference between a cliff
and a road with no directions.

before i knew it, there you were
with dark crescents under your eyes,
then, it seemed the grinning boy
had met his untimely demise.

you appeared as though you were
a thousand and ten lifetimes away from him,
because never had i seen such blues
in eyes that ever looked so dim.

it broke me in two to see you
as though your shadow had become you,
struggling to give your tone some life
as there was too much to live up to.

it tore me even more so to find
you had no recollection of my name,
and suddenly, i was a stranger stood
by your door with the oddest of all claims.

because i said i knew you
even though we barely talked,
only on the hallways of school
where everyone's quick to walk.

still, you shook your head and hid
your face of disappointment,
i knew trying to make you stay and
look at me was going to be pointless.

but it took me by surprise when
you asked if i wanted coffee,
and for that, the slighest of hope
surged through my whole body.

five days from now, i said,
as i knew to wait it out,
you agreed with a nod despite
your slightest expression of doubt.

it was in a cafè i'd been
too intimidated by to go,
haunted by a sundae was
silly enough, i know.

because i had a past of demons
that took shape of my loved ones,
and i could never survive with them,
never for the long run.

and so the days passed as if,
at all, they didn't matter,
to my dismay, you showed up late
as if in lack of any manners.

i didn't hold it to you; you looked
the same as five days ago,
as though your days dragged
and mine was a quick throw.

all i wanted to do was sit by you
and ask any question i could think,
hold you close because all i saw
was a man starting to sink.

within your own head was an ocean
of thoughts that prevented you from me,
and it was the thought that worried me
if strangers are all we could ever be.

i knew you then to be one
of the hearts made of gold,
a perfect contrast to when
i felt you were cold.

because gone was the
light-hearted mask that i knew,
and so i wondered if this
new face was truly you.

junie