Stuff I Never Expressed to Some of the Men in My Life

There are some demons men boys who had more of an impact on me than they probably realized but this is less about that and more of a chance for me to get some stuff off of my chest that, for one reason or another, I will likely never get to say to them. So let us begin.

E (you didn’t think I would use full names did you??)

Third grade.

I don’t remember how but we became friends.

Fourth grade I realized I had a huge crush on you.

Which you knew.

Then later you stopped being my friend. Without warning.

The question of why still haunts me.

A

Maybe if I’d learned to run you wouldn’t have left me

so far behind. Never feeling like I could catch up.

You had your eyes on the horizon and I had mine

on the stars.

We started off on a lie.

When you jokingly said I hated you

and I assured you that I liked you

I simply meant as a person. Not in a romantic way.

I never knew how to correct it.

I went along with it and then you became my moon.

Were we together because we wanted to?

Or because it felt like that’s what everyone

in the church was rooting for. Did “us” get started

because people already assumed it was true?

Would we have found each other under different circumstances?

You used to tell me you love me.

I used to say it back.

To this day, I’m not sure if either of us were telling the truth.

But maybe we actually believed it.

And maybe that’s what mattered.

T

When I was the new girl,

you were the first to reach out to me.

You might be the only boy who is a match for me

with how you use your words.

Almost worthy opponent.

Did I truly like you those years past

or was it the way you said the things you said?

Or when he wasn’t paying enough attention to me?

J

I never forgot that first time

that we truly hung out. It was a snow day.

We watched movie after movie.

I’ll probably never know what made you just stop

speaking to me. That drives me crazy.

Did you wake up one day and decide you’d gotten tired

of me?

That seems to be a constant theme at this point.

D

With you, I came the closest to learning how to trust.

We seemed to perpetually be on cloud nine.

Imagine my surprise when you pushed me back

to the earth that day in June.

C

I still don’t know whether to consider it assault

or almost rape.

But I stopped speaking to you because of it.

R

I was actually capable of seeing myself with you.

In a way I hadn’t done with any boy.

In a very long time.

Of course, you didn’t choose me.

J

Remember when I told you

that I wanted to be with you eventually?

Guess who’d never been the one to express that first

to anyone?

Guess who decided to give it a shot with you?

Even though you’d once said that you wouldn’t

enter into a relationship with me.

All the mean things you said, nothing

hurt as much as you deciding I was too much stress.

O and B

I don’t believe in love at first sight.

I don’t believe in love within weeks.

I don’t even know if I can ever reciprocate

the feelings allegedly in existence.

 

-Omi-