peccavi

i think you are lovely.
but i am not in love with you,
and by the fifth time you catch my eye and look
away just as quickly, i realize
that i cannot will myself into being so.

if love were as simple as a field of flowers,
i swear i would pick you a bouquet
of daises, and make sure that every petal you
picked off ended with ‘she loves me’.

if love were as reliable as the sun,
i would never stand so far away from you that our
shadows did not touch.

if love were as predictable as the weather,
i swear i would spend every storm
kissing you in the rain.

if love were as fair as Lady Justice
i would tie a scarf around my eyes
and spend the rest of my life blind
just to be able to feel the way our fingerprints
line up together.

if love were—
but it’s not, and i’m not—
in love with you, that is, and
you deserve a girl whose heartbeat plays
the Hawaii 5-0 theme song whenever
you walk into the room.

i know that isn’t me.

and i don’t know how we can remain the same,
when every time i see your smile,
i think about how i held your heart in my hand
for five years without even noticing
its weight and when you finally
spat out your truths, i dropped it
like it was so hot, like i was afraid it would
burn me—i was afraid i would have scars of your
heartbeat on my hands for the rest
of my life. to be honest, i think
i will anyway.

to be honest, sometimes i am mad at you
because i never wanted to be someone’s first love
or someone’s first heartbreak poem,
or the reason someone found it hard to breathe
or the guilty secret someone tells their friends about
in whispers and only when drunk.

i don’t want to be the thing you think about
only when drunk.

i don’t want to be the catch in your throat, or the heat
in your face, or your sweaty palms,
or your stutter and
or your broken daisy stalks.

i don’t want to be the petals strewn across
your floor, like the carnage of a hope you can’t
manage to shake.

you are lovely. you are so

lovely. sometimes, i wonder
if i have made your heart heavy enough
that the next person you give it to will
notice its presence before you even have
to say a word.