to all the boys i thought i loved

*inspired by Rudy Francisco*

I am not a vessel.
Sometimes I like to think I am.
Like to think that if I allow others’ sorrow to fill me

with all they have overflowing, I will feel fuller,
think that the empty I pretend is there
because I don’t want to deal with the full, can find peace

in someone else’s tears. I am not a carpenter.
It is not my job to figure out how to construct,
how to fit all your broken pieces back together again

after you have been used too roughly.
honestly, I suck at puzzles and I’m wrong to think I can handle
anything more than Ikea tables with diagrammed instructions.

I am not your coach.
Not there to be screaming in the stands
protecting you from yourself

and making bad decisions that will affect the team.
I am not responsible for your responsibilities
though maybe I use them to distract me from my own.

I am not your therapist,
Your nutritionist,
Your mother.

I know it feels nice having someone to fill every gap in your life.
I know because that’s what I’ve done with you.
Corks and plugs and sandbags trying to keep everything in me
from spilling out my swiss-cheese skin,
my chest riddled with holes from the target practice I’ve let my past use me for.

I think I owe you my deepest apologies
for using you
without realizing.

For letting you sink into my deepest trenches
to try to plug the leaks,
then blaming you for venturing too far

and saying you asked for too much
when I invited you to take
my whole kingdom.

Self is the childhood friend you have the most history with.
Self is the best friend who tells you everything you don’t want to need to hear.
Self is the only one you can fit all the pieces together again, the only one who can draw the picture on the box.

I tried to be your self
so I wouldn’t have to
face my own.

To all the boys I thought I loved,
I couldn’t love you
because I was trying to learn to love myself.

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Voices

*Inspired by "Water" by Rudy Francisco When I was six years old, my sister tried to help me believe that animals could talk. She did this by holding a stuffed dog in front of her lips as she spoke. I attempted revealing her act, grabbing it away with arms Too small to budge such a mighty force I think she said, "See, you can't prove I'm talking for it. It's the dog speaking." I remember trying to pull the gag in return, but she was strong enough to just tear the dog away. That was the day I stopped trusting that which I cannot prove. "To anyone brave enough to love me," Do you know there are five fundamental love-languages humans use to express and receive affection? When you say that you care, it is in a foreign tongue. All I see is a stuffed dog stopping your words from translating.

big-ot-ry (/ˈbiɡətrē/)

The monster known as Bigotry has the general form of a scapegoat with the horns of the devil from your left shoulder and the glowing eyes from the first staring contest you lost. It stands as tall as your shortcomings and as broad as everything you claim is too heavy for your shoulders. It is summoned with the pentagram star of the flag you say you are acting to honor and marches to the rhythm of your gunfire-drum. It has the shifting face of every school yard bully you have lost yourself to and the shrieks of every child who has trembled in your shadow. Its tail looks much like the back-end of a fish, flipping back and forth from whatever opinion makes you seem the highest and mightiest, scales catching the light in all the most attractive ways. Though its gate is led with a haughty head, its shoulders demand attention and when ignored they grow; more boisterous, louder, wider - until it feels like the elephant in the room you use his horns to prod in the most pain...

Strangers on Trains

Her hand was small waving up at me could be a his hand it is hard to tell at that age A crowded subway car bursting with silence strangers who couldn’t, wouldn’t don’t make eye contact All turn and coo, smile wiggle their tongues and fingers noises too gentle for this crowded train fill it with music Faces meet faces to one day be the strangers we never knew we met (if you can call a passing glance meeting) who fill our dreams with people that feel new no longer so strange to each other now, it’s not taboo to talk to compliment her eyes and she, my shirt There is a gentleness in innocence that begs to be protected by those that have already lost it who try to keep those little blue eyes from learning not to connect with strangers on trains

You Can Call Me Eli

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