She

It’s as simple as this: her hair looked soft on her cheek

And it took my breath away, my heart

In a thousand pieces- I never decided this,

Longed to ignore it, to not imagine

What could be, don’t you think I tried

To lock it all inside of me?

She blushed rose pink, 

She tucked her hands into too-long sleeves,

And I thought she was beautiful, have you not felt it too?

The wistful longing of Tuesday afternoon, when time

Exists on a continuum, and I wrote her angsty poems

Because speech was not an option.

My heart was never meant to live in that room

With its desks and chairs and windows that don’t

Open. I know some would confine it to notebooks

And shame spirals, I know I would set it free over 

Frostbitten fields and swiftly moving seas, yet there it sat,

An hour a week, always on time.

She came and went, pulled out the chair, pushed it in.

I studied the curls falling over her neck, ignoring

The way the ground faltered when she spoke. So thank fuck

The shame didn’t find me back then, desperate, the year I spent 

Forcing my feelings into a shape

That I did not need to hide from.