DROPKICKromance Read online

  your entire life

  mapped out in

  sharpie scribbles

  from floor to ceiling.

  when you immortalized

  me on those walls

  all my doubts

  were wiped away

  and once again

  i had hope.

  — sometimes, it’s the little things.

  we walked aimlessly around

  the grocery store

  down the street

  from your house

  where you took me to

  the complimentary coffee stand.

  everything was still

  as we each poured ourselves a cup.

  i was never much of a coffee drinker,

  so even though my cup

  was more sugar and cream

  than coffee

  it was still

  so hard

  to choke down

  that bitter taste.

  — i still drank every drop.

  we both knew

  the distance

  would be difficult.

  we managed

  to defeat it once,

  but finishing it off for good

  was the challenge

  neither of us

  could quite figure out.

  — but a challenge we were willing to accept.

  our last night together

  filled with our hopes for the future,

  premature goodbye tears,

  and one final photograph

  to remember what it felt like

  to have each other,

  however briefly

  it might have been.

  — goodbye, for now.

  you’d think there would be

  some sort of lesson here

  in how quickly a good thing

  can be taken away,

  but distance did not

  make our hearts

  grow fonder;

  it simply brought us back

  to the exact same chapter

  we left off at

  before.

  — a false hope.

  i spent my time

  wrestling the weekends away,

  waiting to feel that

  magic again

  but in the process,

  i discovered self-worth

  and self-confidence.

  i am more

  than just

  a relationship status.

  i am more

  than i had ever

  given myself

  credit for.

  i am more

  than this.

  — i am mine before i am yours.

  your nicotine-laced kisses

  were no longer enough for me.

  — a cheek turned.

  there was

  nothing i wanted more

  than to turn our

  d r e a m

  into

  r e a l i t y ,

  but i couldn’t

  justify

  giving up

  e v e r y t h i n g

  for

  o n e t h i n g

  when i’ve already

  given you

  every other piece

  of myself.

  — my escape.

  so we’d wait it out.

  we’d wait until the planets

  aligned,

  we’d wait until the sun

  went out,

  we’d wait until the earth’s

  dying days

  to see if there was a future for us

  after all.

  — if it was meant to be, the wait would be worth it.

  we had all the time

  we needed

  to lay the foundation

  of our future,

  but the bricks

  crumbled

  a

  w

  a

  y

  at the weight of our touch

  because they lacked

  the one component

  they needed

  to stay

  w h o l e.

  — what is time without effort?

  you spent the entire summer in my basement

  folding multicolored squares into the shapes

  of cranes and puffy little stars.

  it was endearing, i have to admit,

  to watch you meticulously

  make each fold,

  constructing something so intricate

  from something so simple.

  but it’s so sad, isn’t it?

  to know that no matter how much time

  you put into creating something beautiful,

  it takes only a moment

  to break it back down, fold by fold;

  to squeeze each star between your fingertips

  until its light flickers and dies;

  to pick each crane up by its wings

  and pull them apart until

  the tension becomes too much.

  — and it tears in two.

  you tried,

  but you didn’t try

  hard enough.

  i can’t fault you

  when i wasn’t willing

  to sacrifice the same,

  but i’d hoped that this

  would finally be the time

  you’d put in enough

  of yourself

  to balance out

  this buckling scale.

  — equivalent exchange.

  we spent seven years

  traversing highways

  in buses and cars,

  closing miles by the hundreds—

  sometimes meeting halfway,

  sometimes going all the way—

  to prove all this pain

  was worth it.

  from handfuls of days

  to entire summers,

  we tried to prove

  that distance

  was beatable.

  we won battles,

  but i don’t think

  either one of us

  truly believed

  we could win

  this war.

  — sometimes, trying isn’t enough.

  true love can conquer anything.

  true love can conquer anything.

  true love can conquer anything.

  true love can conquer anything.

  — but what if this isn’t really true love?

  i remember

  cherry limeade chillers

  and wandering around

  the sculpture park

  until the sun

  began to sink

  into the horizon.

  i remember

  sitting on the frame

  of what looked like a sailboat,

  talking, laughing,

  enjoying the comfortable quiet,

  and thinking to myself

  that this is the moment

  i’d always been searching for.

  — too little, too late.

  life is made up of a series of moments,

  but a single flash of light

  in a sea of darkness

  isn’t enough

  to save our souls.

  — still, i held on.

  phone calls became

  fewer and further between.

  text messages went

  longer without a response.

  too much time wasted dwelling

  on what you might be doing

  wondering what i might have done

&nb
sp; to warrant being left in the dark.

  — the dark hadn’t frightened me until now.

  you were not

  the first person i texted

  when i woke up this morning.

  — pocket-sized rebellion.

  time

  was the rope

  in a game of tug-of-war

  between a dog and its master—

  i sunk my teeth in

  and took however much

  you were willing to give

  but you

  were all too eager

  to let go entirely.

  — the pendulum is swinging slower and slower.

  you wore a mask

  to hide your

  true face

  from me.

  i wore a mask

  to hide your

  handiwork

  from everyone else.

  — i’m not sure whose was more convincing.

  i could stand in the middle

  of an arena filled

  with people chanting my name

  and it still wouldn’t fill

  this gaping hole

  you left in my heart.

  — but the show must go on.

  you turned me into

  the one thing

  i had fought so hard

  not to be—

  it was my honesty,

  my integrity,

  that i had taken most

  pride in.

  but because of the need

  to protect you, the need

  to ensure that not a single soul

  looked down on you for the things

  you did to me

  you

  made a liar

  out of me.

  — it’s time i come clean.

  i’d begged and pleaded

  for this one thing

  and it was

  the one thing

  you couldn’t give me.

  — honesty.

  he kissed you,

  and you did nothing.

  i told you to spend time with him,

  and you did.

  let’s not pretend, anymore,

  that this is working.

  let’s not pretend, anymore,

  that you care.

  — we both knew this was coming.

  we decided to give it

  one last chance

  to see if there was

  anything left to save,

  to make believe

  one last time

  that we weren’t

  broken beyond repair,

  and to write

  one final chapter.

  our ending,

  on our terms.

  — i stopped short of calling it a eulogy.

  you said

  you hadn’t yet

  made up your mind,

  but i knew that was a lie.

  i knew before we agreed to this.

  i knew before i stepped on that bus.

  i knew before i walked through your door.

  before i asked you if you knew,

  i knew.

  — i always knew.

  i don’t know where i am

  or how i got here.

  it’s like i’m watching someone else’s

  life from the outside.

  everything seems so familiar

  but nothing feels right.

  you seem so familiar

  but you don’t feel right.

  — how can there be so much distance when

  we’re so close?

  we collapsed into each other,

  one big mess of tears.

  — this is it.

  i gave you my best.

  — that’s all i had to give.

  a dog is loyal to its owner

  without question.

  it will protect them

  against any threat,

  will give love

  unconditionally

  and grant forgiveness

  automatically,

  for that is the nature

  of a dog—they never

  see the bad in someone,

  and that is why

  i stayed. that is why

  i let you kick me in the ribs

  over and

  over and

  over, until

  you finally got bored,

  tied me to the post

  outside the greyhound station,

  and left me in the winter cold.

  — nothing more than a stray.

  with one last kiss,

  you whispered:

  “this will not be

  the last time

  we see each other.”

  i nodded,

  knowing that this

  would be the

  very last lie

  you’d ever tell me.

  — i’d make sure of it.

  i tried to hide it,

  to hold in the tears,

  steady my breathing,

  think about anythinganything else,

  but i knew

  that every single person

  in this overstuffed bus

  could see the moment

  my heart shattered

  into millions

  of tiny

  little

  p i e c e s .

  — and i didn’t have the strength to pick them back up.

  the room was a blinding white

  unnaturally bright

  the kind of light

  that still burns your eyes

  even when you shut them tight

  and bury them in your palms.

  i turned away

  from the other lost souls

  as if they were the sun

  and i icarus.

  the ceiling

  the walls

  the floor

  everything a blinding white

  unnaturally bright

  why is there so much light

  when everything else

  is so dark?

  — it burns.

  they say ohio

  is for people like us,

  but as i sit here

  alone

  on a layover in cincinnati

  drowning in tears

  and choking on irony,

  i can tell you that ohio

  is not for people like us,

  after all,

  but a graveyard

  where people go

  to bury their hearts

  when love dies.

  — i laid my naïveté to rest right beside it.

  your name popped up on the caller i.d.

  and at first i thought it was

  a mistake, a dream,

  a nightmare.

  i didn’t understand,

  couldn’t understand

  why you thought your voice

  is what i needed to hear

  but what confused me most

  was right before you hung up,

  you told me

  you loved me.

  yesterday, i would’ve believed you

  but i’m not who i was then.

  somehow, in these few short hours,

  i’ve become someone entirely different,

  and through these

  cloudy new eyes,

  i now see

  everything i didn’t then.

  — this was over long ago.

  “where are you headed?”

  the woman in front of me asked

  as we stood in line,


  waiting to move on

  to our next destination.

  it was the smallest of gestures,

  but it’s one that will never leave me.

  she didn’t know my story,

  why i was here,

  or where i was coming from,

  but she cared enough

  to ignore my swollen eyes

  and tear-stained cheeks;

  she cared enough to wonder

  where this bleeding heart was going.

  we might have been two

  namelessfaceless strangers,

  two ships passing in the night,

  but she showed me a kindness that i

  was all but ready to give up on.

  — if you read this, thank you.

  i woke up,

  face planted against

  the bus window,

  crusty-eyed and dry-lipped,

  the saddest song i knew

  echoing through my headphones

  on an endless loop.

  for a moment,

  time was still.

  for a moment,

  everything was okay.

  — then it hit me again, all at once.