When I Wanted You to Stay, and Then When I Didn’t

Olivia Rose

8 years left

Late July, car packed with one seat left for me

Though I already felt aged, the woman in my dreams told me

clinging onto the youthful sweetness, I tried my best.

Baby tooth was on the verge of falling out

I packed a plastic bubble container from one of the grocery store vending machines.

On the interstate, began to feel like the woman that lives inside my head was filling

my lungs with honey.

My hands were still small enough to wrap around my mom’s pointer finger,

yet every time I looked in the mirror,

shocked when I didn’t see wrinkles under my eyes

and smile lines painted by my lips.

I saw that her eyes were the same shade of emerald green with identical golden rings around her irises.

I made my tooth move like a metronome with my tongue

tried to breath despite the viscous substance clogging my lungs.

When I was young, I would only inhale

Fill up my lungs with cold air and then collect it

See how still I could become

Kept it within me because I was afraid of the commotion I would cause if I exhaled

I wanted to be more still

Lighter

To float away

I couldn't breathe

 5 years left

My father dangled above me with wiry grey hair

He told me when he discovered the needle in Iris’ veins

He told her he was going to tie her up to a tree in the woods

Roasting marshmallows on the fire beneath her feet

The woman I see sometimes in between blinks

She tells me things confined within these microscopic screens

Her earth green eyes tell me stories of my future

In the red earth behind my father’s silhouette the woman greeted me

She took me with her and coated me in honey

Sticky and melted within her realm

Warm

Safe

Secure

Forced back into existence by my father asking me how school is going

Have I read The Mists of Avalon?

Did I take geometry yet?

He would have known if he was there,

don't you think?

 2 years left

I remember the beauty.

My tiny body within the heart of the Serra de Tramuntana,

sandy cobblestone of Santuri de Lluc against warm earth.

Irises both newly budded and wilting in front of a house of ancient confessions.

Flat and elongated stalks. 

The inside of the church lit with colored rays of sunshine filing in through stained glass

I didn't belong there

I don't belong here

Don't belong

Don’t.

I love the way people tuck their face behind something,

anything,

when they are at their most vulnerable

I remember the orange trees with their fruit heavy and reaching

Against the dusty brown mountains

Mary Oliver was able to write an entire book of poetry about dogs.

Just dogs.

I can't even find beauty in the most beautiful

All I can see is ugly,

in the mirror especially

She said, “Someone I love once handed me a box of darkness,

it took me years to understand that this too was a gift.”

Fuck, I hope she’s right

1 year left

I broke up with my first real girlfriend in the parking lot of the elementary school we went to together

I was so tired of her not loving me                           

I thought that I was all she had, and therefore

could be nothing more than something to fill the time.

Everytime she handed me true tokens of her admiration,

I handed back to her with an excuse as to why they were fabricated

Why she was a liar.

Why I was being lied to.

Years later I see so clearly that it was love,

Real raw fucking love

But one that I couldn’t accept.

I threw it back to her as though she had insulted me.

I didn’t write about her once.

Maria Irene Fornes developed Alzheimer’s but never forgot

how Susan Sontag’s name sounded while escaping from her mouth.

When asked why she always mentions Susan Sontag she responded with

“I don’t have to answer that, you know she was the love of my life.”

She wasn’t the love of mine.

I thought running away would help.

I don't remember what I was running from.

Secretly, I don't think it was anything in particular.

I never gave anyone my heart to break,

it was never whole in the first place

The woman in my visions wears white lace that burns against her skin;

warm olive skin painted with black tattoos.

And her eyes are the same color as mine.

Although they look more inviting,

and less afraid. 

I recognized her wrinkles as though I had seen them in the mirror before

Golden rings around her irises.

I see her during the hard parts.

0 years left

I am going to forward the check to my mom’s name and allow her to cash it into her account.

I do not feel comfortable pursuing a relationship at this time.

For 18 years I felt as though I was an afterthought.

For 18 years I did not feel loved by you

I did believe in you.

I made excuses for all the ways in which you did not show up. But

I grew up, and I did so with beauty and grace

I’ve learned that when you grow up you stop believing in fairy tales

began to see clearly all the ways in which you lacked as a father.

I am not going to say more because I think the subconscious awareness of all the ways in which you lacked as a father is troubling enough for your psyche, and, quite frankly,

I feel sorry for you.

I have made the choice to block you for the time being.

Please respect this choice, and reflect on my words,

it has taken me my entire life to write them.

Olivia.

That’s not poetry.

At least it didn’t seem like poetry when I sent it out,

indefinite and terrifying in the body of a green bubble.

It felt as though I was unfolding within a world that does not exist,

It never has

I hate who you were.

I hate who I am.

Please tell me it won’t always be like this

I want to make sense of this but I still don't understand photosynthesis

Or how people can believe in God

Or how I ever became any of this?

And maybe this is just one of those things that I won’t ever understand.