Find Less

high school throwback therapy time poem

I’ve been thinking about how, although it doesn’t matter now

I would have given everything to you

Every last bit of ruin, and taken yours too

A terrible truth, this regret from my youth

I still remember the sting, knowing I was nothing

An art teacher once said

The canvas couldn’t stop me

Just like my mind

Could not keep back all my fantasies

And just as the frame’s edge

Didn’t hold the whole image

Neither did all my good sense

Avert any of the damage

The mindset, all my best efforts to forget

It was never set, but all the same

I’d been caught in your net

And yet

I contemplate my eyes on you

Too intense

And you wanted less

I can’t help but wonder what we could have taught each other

There was evidence but no way to convince

The person I was back then, how it would have been

Bad for me, wrong for me, full of anxiety

Something I wanted that never could have been granted

The time and distance have shown me clearly

The deep down feelings I felt severely

And the bullets I dodged when you dodged me

The idea of making myself so small

To ever be with you at all

So more than anything

I can be relieved that we were nothing

The time I spent thinking of you was surely a waste

Such a bitter taste

But I choose to face it rather than despise every minute

Wouldn’t it be healthier if I didn’t -

But how clearly I recall your casual dismissal

Annoyed and utterly noncommittal

I would come to learn you needed less, I needed more

Though my family had been sure of what was in store

For us, but I knew there was no us, never an us

There was only You, and me, Lost

My father told me sagely we were sure to be something

And I had no one to pray to, but I’d look at the moon

Plead with her that it was okay to be nothing

And it was nothing, I was a contained fire

Toxic waste safely behind barbed wire

Cowering in a billowing, smoldering mess

It was all too much and you wanted less

And I just have to say that I’m so f*****g angry

When looking back at nineteen year old me

You turning your head as I was breaking apart

While she tried to protect her crater of a heart

No amount of armor could have stopped that catastrophe

Love, I had dreamed, my soul on fire

Love, inside I screamed, heart in tatters

Burning myself on the pyre…

Love, I often whispered, spirit shattered

Churning inside, full of fear

Afraid this was the purest love I’d ever feel

But speaking of this, I’ve conflated you with all of it

Every clueless missed moment, every wallowing pit

Every fall, every miss, they coalesced into you, every little bit

Briefly we were true friends, do you remember

Until we were rare, fearsome encounters

Then I had no one to walk with, not one to talk with

But it’s not your fault, I tell myself this

I tried to be brave even when you didn’t care

The blame isn’t all yours, but you were there

It wasn’t you, it was me

I told myself repeatedly

Still I fought for you viciously

Why, if not romantically

Just love me platonically

But there was no minimum capacity

You wanted absolutely nothing

This was all she knew, younger me

Claw as I might, I couldn’t break free

Couldn’t find healing

But I know her now, she wanted to be seen

Love in her eyes, it was too intense

She didn’t know yet that you wanted less

Author's Note

Felt like the end of an era, felt nice to let it all loose