For K, From A

For K.

I don’t want to feel it anymore. The jealousy. The pain. I don’t want to know what it is like to know you. I don’t want to feel the world stop when you shine that lopsided smirk. I don’t want to know that your eyes cannot be distinguished between green and brown. I don’t want to feel like I’m drowning and the only way to breathe is if you pull me up. I don’t want to feel you in the back of my mind. I don’t want to feel the growing infatuation of yet another. I don’t want to hear you tell her the same things you told me. I don’t want to feel your wandering eyes and the way my heart races when they do. I don’t want to ask you for help knowing I don’t need it. I don’t want to have dumb, meaningless conversations about the past. I don’t want to get mad at you. I don’t want to imagine a world where you and I might work out. I don’t want to know your routine or if your little sister watches Caillou. I don’t want to know where you worked over the summer or if you got a new truck. I don’t want to remember the stupid little things or if you and your family are going to Idaho. I don’t want to talk about music or the teachers you can’t stand. I don’t want to have inside jokes or talk about how much we like burritos. I don’t want to roll my eyes and pretend I can’t stand you. I don’t want to see you walking in the hall or laughing with your friends. I don’t want anything to do with you. I don’t want to know why you came to a new school and why your mom won’t let you get your license. I don’t want to have to work together or get along. I don’t want to need you in my life. I don’t want to want you. I don’t want to remember. I never knew having you back in my life would be worse than shutting you out.

It should have ended when I left Susana Street. I should have left the crisp, cool air of early winter along with the desperately hopeful trot of forgotten love. But I carried the burden of knowing your soul to a new location: a new home. Gone were the noises of the tweaker paradise we called downtown. The worn down streets of a blue collar town were forgotten as I unpacked the weight of your conscious, tucking it neatly on top of my new closet shelf. Everything died around me except the memories. The way we walked side by side without a care in the world of who heard or saw us. Who wondered who the boy and girl that walked home together every Thursday afternoon were. I left our spot. The one where the small town fades and the leafy wonderland crawls into existence up the side of the mountain. The spot where we almost kissed in the late winter rain. The spot where we were undeniably each others. I sit in a new room that has grown old. It’s 2 am in early fall two years later and I’m thinking about that spot. I’m thinking about the way your left cheek creases when you look my way. I’m thinking how your eyes reflect the fall color currently residing outside and how your rustic voice resembles the chill the wind spits tonight. I have carried the weight of your soul and have not gotten release since the day I saw you in the high school library. You will have to forgive me when I say it is time to let go. Of everyone I have known, you are my longest dream and favorite nightmare. I guess I never really prepared for the goodbye. I always thought there was a place for you, but you no longer belong to me and that’s ok. You are someone else’s poetry now.