It was not fair to you,
That I hid you away.
I did not tell you the truth,
The shame I held over us.
A siren
Pulled me in
I viewed you
As my sin.
I gazed at your body,
As I’d never a man’s.
I resented you for that fact,
You…a reminder of my crime.
Short term we were a shooting star:
Burning bright and advancing fast.
Our souls hardly parted,
If not in body in mind.
During the good I thought,
I’d never leave your side.
Long term we were a volcano:
A constant threat of eruption.
Neither ready to mature enough,
To work on ourselves as was needed.
We battled our demons alone,
Causing them to play together.
What we had wasn’t love,
It wasn’t kind or selfless or pure.
What we had was lust,
It was raw and greedy and fun.
What we had we both needed,
In that exact moment in time.
When you cheated on me,
I remember thinking:
Were we really dating?
Or using each other.
Calling you my girlfriend?
A bandaid on my wounds.
How could I be angry?
I never showed you me.
I think about how I was with you,
18 years old and so afraid of it all.
Of falling for you,
Of touching you too close,
Of getting caught in Sappho’s trap,
Never to become part of Man’s world.
I think about how I am without you,
Mid-20s and so amazed by it all.
By catching myself,
By living honestly,
By accepting what I can’t change,
And to realize I don’t want to.
I think about you at times,
I see you’re doing well.
You seem happier now,
Freer than you used to pretend to be.
You seem healthier now,
Striding towards who you want to be.
We’ve both grown significantly,
Much more than we could’ve together.
I don’t see what we had as good or bad,
But ‘twas meant to last only a season.
Brittan began writing poetry in June 2020. She uses poetry as a therapeutic exercise when revisiting homophobic traumatic memories and describing life with BPD & Bipolar 2. She uses poetry as a medium for self-expression when discussing Buddhism, lesbianism, and platonic love.
Mindfully Messy 