The Way It Always Should Have Been

You were everything they said about a relationship

Unplanned, Unsuspected, Unexplained

but the stars painted on the backs of our eyelids seemed to align the day we first made eye contact

No amount of distance or time could help me escape your gravitational pull on my curiosity.

I was encased by your orbit so I..

I dipped my toes into your lakes but soon after, submerged myself completely

I curled up in every cubby and crevice I found trying to fill any holes you thought you had.

My heart sang along to the music I played on the strings of your sun rays and at night, I’d sit under your moonlight and watch as you drew me constellations.

Your eyes danced playfully and delicately with me the way the ocean leads soft light through a line dance,

and there was a global warming to your smile so powerful it parted the stratosphere.

But with one simple sentence, you cracked my ozone and pierced my soul, injecting too much for me to handle at the time.

“Grace, We’re in two very different places mentally, physically, and emotionally.”

….

followed by,

“We are in two completely different worlds”

“This is not compatible”

I guess the sun I’d burn my palms to bring to you was not the one you were looking for and I guess I must have been day dreaming on Jupiter when I believed we were looking at the same moon and I guess the stars that lined up were actually airplane lights each headed to their own destination. I guess…that I..was really never in your “world”.

You said “I hope you understood” but by understood you must have meant under stood as in, under you I stood. You see you never really made me feel good enough for you. Never funny enough for you. Never mature enough. Never there enough,

for you.

But you never really understood that I would drink the oceans just to show you the world in one kiss.

And if there wasn't any more water left in the world,

with my sweat and tears, I’d take care of you.

….

You never really got that.

And for these reasons, I hate you.

….

Well…

I’m not really the type to hate…

But if I were, I would evict you from my body through the streams of curse words that would have given me closure if they hadn't been tied down by the knot you put in my stomach.

If I were, I would call the cops on you because you stole the meaning out of every love song out there, ransomed my ability to sleep at night, and held my imagination hostage.

If I were I would write a poem filled with metaphors about how I let you become my world, about drawing constellations and drinking oceans,

But this poem isn't for you! or to you! or about you!

No.

This one’s mine.

I’m taking this one back for all the times my heart took control of my brain and the words “what could have been” formed on my lips.

No.

This one is mine.

Mine to reMIND that you can’t rush time. To jump start my heart out of the dark. For my eyes to memorize the line that says

“baby, it’s okay to cry.”

There is no rhyme to the reasons you walked away. So this poem..

This poem is not for you.

It’s for me. To me. and About me.

The way it should have always been.