myheartinlowercase

[myheartinlowercase]

a poem i wrote about my desire to kiss wizards the world has enough bullets enough men with gods in their mouths and lotion on their hands me? i want to kiss a sad wizard just once he falls in love with me forever because i'm there because i said hi i think that's beautiful

[myheartinlowercase]

you make need feel holy not heavy a quiet belonging instead of something to atone for

[myheartinlowercase]

i’m starting to notice how the room sours when i speak how i lace compliments with conditions how i make silence feel like a threat

i rewind old arguments like favourite songs trying to find the moment i was right not the moment i was kind

i’ve learned to cry without tears to say i’m fine like a loaded gun i say i love you like a promise then act like it’s a trap this isn't about you there’s no name to blame but mine no fight that explains it just a mirror just a pattern just a truth i keep dressing up in prettier words

maybe i am the storm i keep bracing for maybe i am the red flag folded neat in my own hands

and maybe i should feel worse than i do

[myheartinlowercase]

i wasn’t looking for it just sorting the mass of old shine and dust stacking small tangles of past selves into new places

on the left side where necklaces go to knot and forget a pocket i never use and there it is

a forgotten bracelet

black string pull the ends, it tightens simple as breath in a gold bee at the center not gaudy, not loud just small enough to keep close just bright enough to mean something

you gave it to me maybe on our fourth year maybe fifth i wore it everywhere even when i slept even after the nights we didn’t speak

the drawstrings still hold a shape from where i used to fasten it a memory of my wrist the beads at the ends stay apart connected, but not touching like us near the end close enough to feel the pull too proud or unsure to close the gap

i sit on the floor too long. half-packed boxes open-mouthed around me the night moving on without pause

i don't slip it on but i don’t put it away, either not yet

just rest it beside me in the open in the light

like something that once knew how to be held

[myheartinlowercase]

you say sorry every time i raise my voice you bow your head as if my anger were scripture i don’t even have to try a look a shrug a silence too long and you’re already bleeding yourself for me you call it love i call it convenience you, the open door me, the draft that slams it i chip away at you with dull little criticisms and you thank me like i'm sculpting you into something better. but there’s nothing left to shape only dust that keeps settling where you used to stand some nights, i almost feel it the guilt but then you smile at me like you’ve won something just for being near and i let you believe that because it’s easier because you never make it hard

[myheartinlowercase]

i live alone now it’s quiet no one yells no one leaves i have a job i can buy groceries sometimes i even laugh but some nights i cry without warning like my body remembers something i don’t i ruin good things push people out before they can stay i don’t know why i say i want love then run from it say i want peace then light the match maybe i’m the problem maybe i’ve always been and maybe that hurts more than anything else

[myheartinlowercase]

i show up only when i feel like it just enough light to soften the edges of your day words drip like honey sweet, but sparse measured not drowning you only enough to remind you i’m here no grand gestures no fireworks just quiet punctuation between my silences a smile that doesn’t ask for more than what it is simple, steady, kind because sometimes the bare minimum is a poem typed in a font you want to read again

[myheartinlowercase]

almost twenty four and still tracing red like i’m fourteen in my bedroom with my headphones on

thought i’d grow out of this like skipping meals like crying for no reason like blaming everyone like needing someone to see me

it feels childish it feels pathetic but it feels and some nights that’s the only thing i can get

[myheartinlowercase]

the iron in my mouth bites down hard a whisper that never leaves a weight that folds my spine inward

you spoke in cracks words like knives that never bled but always stung not enough a shadow’s echo in empty halls directionless adrift in your silence that screamed

i folded myself like paper waiting for your hands to stop the no’s spilled from my lips like rain against a locked door but you kept walking in a storm that never learned to pause

your name still tastes like rust a bitter tang a wound that wears and will not heal even when the air forgets how to carry it away

[myheartinlowercase]

grief is love with nowhere to go so i write poems and pretend you’re still listening

[myheartinlowercase]

i don’t know where you are now not your street not your city not if you still hum in the shower or talk to dogs like they understand

i used to know what time you woke up how you liked your tea what you feared in the dark and now you’re just a photo smiling the same as always on a linkedin page that hasn’t changed in two years with a blank portfolio website

i’ve tried to move on but your memory follows me in places we never went in faces that almost look like you in the words of my lover, both rhythm and word

sometimes i think about messaging just a hey just a how have you been but it feels like calling into a void that might echo back or might stay silent forever

there’s no one to ask about you no one to say he’s good, he’s happy he remembers you so instead i invent you in cafes and train stations in the way my chest aches when my phone buzzes

i miss you in the kind of way that doesn’t go anywhere like rain trapped in a closed jar falling and falling but never touching the ground

[myheartinlowercase]

i remember when i stood by the church

where we’d go our separate ways

watching you leave

you never looked back

why would you? i thought

but still i watched

until you vanished

into the dark winter air

your blue headphones contrasting

against the neat grey street

the sky low and heavy above us

it took a few failed spells

to let the truth pass my lips

words catching like thorns

in the hollow of my throat

ten paces on week one

seven on week two

five on week three

until at last

in the fourth week’s hush

it drifted out syrup sweet

i like you a lot

i still think of our firsts on that street corner

the first i like you

the first i love you

the first nervous hug

a kiss shy and blushing on the cheek

and the first time i pulled you into the open

like a secret i refused to keep

i faked sadness that day

stood still with practiced tears

and a story thin as mist

you pitied me held me

and as familiar faces passed

i stayed in your arms

until i was sure

they’d seen enough

to call you mine

i see it clearly now

how selfish i was with you

how i marked you as mine

from the moment i could

ripping you from a friend

who i knew felt the same

and shielding you

from another thief’s gaze

one who only wanted

what i already had

that church

it haunts the outline of those years

i once imagined you there

on one knee

a ring in your hand

until the vision blurred

not with joy

but clouded

by golden arches on a sloped ramp

and you walking away

as my tears too pitiful for the day

streaked red on pink

i want to return to that church someday

to test the ache

to trace my old footsteps

hopeful then hollow

to stand where i first lied

where i first claimed you

and to pretend just for a moment

that you're not memory

but there with me

down on your knee

waiting for a yes

[myheartinlowercase]

how to love me without loving me

step one

kiss my forehead like it’s some holy shrine

but never the lips because that might mean something

step two

hold me close when i cry

like i’m a soft thing you almost care for

step three

let me say i love you first

watch me hand you my heart like a gift

step four

kiss the scars i try to hide

the countdown on my skin

that i never kept to

step five

stand by me in the waiting room of a moonlit hospital

holding my hand after i almost gave up on myself

step six

accept my gifts on christmas, anniversaries and valentines

but never give me anything back

not even a thought

step seven

disappear and reappear like a bad dream

act like you never promised anything real

every step back

makes me lean in harder

until finally, we reach

step eighteen

tell me i’m crazy for wanting more

gaslighting is an art darling

and you, my dear are a savant

[myheartinlowercase]

sometimes i wonder what i'd do if your name appeared on my screen a sudden pulse, a flash of maybe it’s not that i miss you at least… not you exactly not the shadow that slipped away but the echo you left behind the ghost of warmth in empty rooms the way you made me feel at least when it was good i miss the you i dreamed up the quiet presence just beyond sleep the creak of your chair the opening and shutting of your drawers the click of the lock on your door a lullaby for a restless night from you to the girl in the room below yours i miss you on that night you stayed waiting with me, breath held in the sterile halls after eighteen pills arriving with a takeout box of lukewarm food with all my favourites from that buffet we used to go to but i don't miss the part where you left staring at me from the stairs when we got home after telling me you didn't deny the stranger in the waiting room who asked if i was yours i shouldn't linger on that one wilted bouquet i've been found by a gardener who tends to my wildest roots one season of his tending grew more blossoms than your seven winters ever could but i just can't unlearn a lifetime of stockpiling if you returned i’d want to say i’d let it go but when it’s you the heart forgets all reason and maybe, just maybe, i wouldn’t

[myheartinlowercase]

you showed up when i was nothing but splinters all sharp edge and warning signs and still you stayed god, i hate you for that for not leaving like everyone else did like i told you to you weren’t supposed to make it this far you weren’t supposed to care but you do you do, in that outward, infuriating way that makes me want to scream and kiss you in the same breath i don’t know how to love you without bracing for impact. don’t know how to stay without watching the door but you're still here and so am i learning love with a limp a snarl every “i love you” tastes like iron every touch is a dare i would’ve died for you once back before i learned what it costs to bleed for someone who doesn’t feel remorse so i live for you, now spitefully reluctantly terrified stay, then see what it makes of me

[myheartinlowercase]

i was four, or maybe six time softens edges but some memories never fade when i cried too loud or spoke in the wrong tone when i forgot myself and became a child too fully she'd call me over sit. in the silence thick with punishment she'd unwrap her feet like old secrets cracked heels and calloused truths and peel away what was already dead the skin came off like curled ribbons fragile and grey falling like ash she cried and said it was because of me that i made her do this that i broke her that my noise and my needs drove her to the edge of herself where even her own body betrayed her i didn't know then how pain can be a language or that love, misnamed can be discarded and found on the ground weeks later now sometimes i take my rage out on myself much like she did almost twenty years ago shallow stripes cover my arm and when the blood pools like rubies i flinch at the memory not of the peeling but of her eyes pleading for me to feel sorry for something i didn't break

[myheartinlowercase]

you were a ghost and i still built a life around your silence