i am the love letter. lillian grace

hands shook when you kissed me through an entire movie.

      I paid for your ticket.

      I’m sure you didn’t even notice.

      One of my favorite songs is from that movie, y’know?

      Never once do I think of you when listening to it.

      I just think of how we sat in the front row and I hate the front row,

      Especially with action movies.

      Loud noises make me jump,

      But you don’t need to know that.

      All you needed to know was how many times your lips could make their way

      Into mine before someone yelled at us.

      Nobody did.

      My lips felt raw afterwards.

      I used them to lie to my mother and tell her that you were just my friend.

      My couch is a ghost town,

      And, as soon as I wrote that line, I felt my mind let go of myself.

      Because I held your hand for two hours on the part of the couch where I do my homework.

      I kissed you for the first time on the armrest.

      I kissed someone for the first time on the armrest.

      I fell asleep in your lap on the cushions.

      Some days, I wish you were still there for me to rest my head on,

      And, now, it’s a headstone

      Of a graveyard made of playlists and poetry.

      I felt guilty for wanting to fall asleep while kissing you.

      You were the judge, and it was so clear I had broken our oath.

      I wouldn’t fall asleep.

      You didn’t want me to.

      You wanted to kiss me while looking out the sliding glass door of my bedroom.

      You didn’t want to pick a hulu movie, you just wanted to kiss me.

      You didn’t want me to tell you about my art wall, you wanted to kiss me.

      You didn’t eat the food my stepmother handed you, you wanted to kiss me.

      You didn’t want to listen to my sister’s music, you wanted to kiss me.

      You didn’t want to talk to my family, you wanted to kiss me.

      You didn’t want us.

      You wanted me.

      At one point, I thought that was enough.

      It wasn’t enough.

      It never will be enough for me.

      I wore your initial on the crook of my neck

      As I walked through LA Pride.

      My sign claimed I was in love with a girl.

      A woman stopped me and told me how she wished she was as brave as me

      When she was my age.

      It was indeed brave for me.

      I wanted to tell the world that I loved you.

      Now that I don’t anymore,

      Sometimes I feel like I only deserved that bravery when I was yours.

      See, I don’t like to go out on Friday nights.

      I like to hide in my room and watch Project Runway until I can’t keep my eyes open.

      I like to stare at the art on my walls that I know all too well.

      I like to facetime my friends and listen to them talk and talk about their days.

      I like to highlight books of poetry and use them to make new art.

      I like to turn Buzzfeed Ladylike on in the background while I organize my room

      For the 800th time.

      But you,

      You made me want to leave the house some days.

      And, of course, I was scared every time,

      And every time I wanted to curl up underneath my blankets and hide

      Because I fear even the best kinds of confrontation.

      But with you, somehow,

      Once I got up I was invincible.

      I could take on every single thing life gave me.

      I found a reason to be reckless without my stomach tightening.

      When in love, I gave my shaky hands

      And racing heart

      To a girl who took them as romantic.

      My inexperienced kissing is not romantic.

      It is merely afraid.

      I am often afraid.

      You either watch or you leave.

      Ignoring was never a valid option,

      Yet that is the one you chose.

      I know that, one day, the name of our playlist will change again,

      And again,

      And again.

      And, one day, I will become a story

      That you tell yourself when you’re trying to fall asleep.

      I hope you know that I was not afraid of you,

      That you are not the villain.

      I hope you know that the villain was lost somewhere

      In the cold night air,

      As I read you a poem that I wish I didn’t write.

      jigsaw

       Jigsaw; Cut into various pieces of different shapes that have to be fitted together.

      the most confusing moment of my life was when I was lying next to you

      I mean you seemed to know what you were doing

      talking to me like your arm wasn’t on mine and your face wasn’t inches away from my face and the computer right in front of us was not open to the hulu screen it was not there at all what are you talking about

      I mean I just think I imagined it differently, the first time I would have a girl sitting in my bed next to me

      she would be quiet or maybe she’d be loud or she would speak her mind in mindful and modest doses but she would speak to me and be just as confused as I was just as confused as to why she was sitting on my bed on a thursday night in the humidity of the summer just returned from a poetry reading that neither of us really enjoyed

      but she wasn’t you don’t worry you were headstrong and strong and you sat there like you had a purpose in my life a throne you were waiting to claim

      I was still putting the pieces together

      Jigsaw; Requires the assembly of oddly shaped interlocking and tessellating pieces.

      I don’t know how well we fit together me and you I mean I never quite wanted people to see us together even now I bring you up to my friend on a sweltering afternoon and it takes her a minute to remember we were even together and it’s not just her it’s me too

      it’s weird that way how I thought we gelled so well we snapped together but even now I talk to my best friend and remember how she stopped talking to me because she knew just how bad you were for me

      even now I try to tell myself I knew just how bad you were

      Jigsaw; Must reassemble a picture.

      theoretically we should have clicked theoretically you were the one to hold me together in my darkest moments and theoretically you watched me enjoy my best ones

      in reality our minds were from very different puzzles I think mine was a tad more complex one of those big 5000 piece ones that I love to do that have some really cool picture with vibrant colors