Faltering Footsteps

I remember hearing

About the girl who

Got to call him hers

And just after she

Became his past

I remember a long bus trip

Seeing a different girl

Rest her head on his shoulder

He didn’t see the tears

Making a home of my eyes

Because he never turned around

❀

A year later and I found myself

Wishing my eyes looked more like

The blonde girl’s from his locker area

Who made him smile and

Brushed shoulders with him when

They walked together

My footsteps faltered as I made my way

Down the corridor behind them but

He still didn’t turn around for

He couldn’t hear the thoughts

That deafened me

❀

It felt like one day I

Was seeing them sit together

Like a scene from a movie and

The next he was telling me

About a different girl with

Dark hair and eyes the colour of mine

But a prettier shade

❀

He said her name like

It was honey and he was

Starving for it but I couldn’t help

Remember how he always said my name

Like it was lava flowing from the sun itself

And he was dying of cold

❀

But I watched him wrap

His arms around her and

Call out to her and weave her name

Into every conversation and I knew that

Whatever flowed between us

May be enough to kill me but

It would never be enough to

Make him choose me

❀

And I still define myself

As the girl who loved him

And the girl he didn’t love back

Instead of the person

Who survived it

❀❀❀❀❀

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