vague raptor
I used to be picky.
I used to have a list.
I used to speak it like a prayer.
No smokers.
No liars.
No half-hearted maybes.
No hands that only know how to take.
No love that feels like a loan I have to repay in pieces of myself.
And they laughed.
Called me proud.
Said I was asking for too much,
said I’d end up alone,
said I wasn’t special enough to have a list of demands
that no one would ever meet.
And I don’t remember when it started—
the bending, the breaking,
the slow unraveling of “too much”
until it became “just enough.”
When the sharp edges of my wants
wore down to something softer, sweeter.
When I started saying yes instead of maybe
Started saying maybe instead of no.
I let them in.
I listened.
Not because I wanted to.
Not because they were what I dreamt of.
But because they begged.
Because they challenged what I knew.
So I stopped searching for something special,
Stopped waiting on that spark
and started handing out matches to men who didn’t know how to strike them.
And they begged.
God, they begged.
For a chance. For my time.
For me to love them the way they demanded.
And I tried to.
Again and again, I tried
to force puzzle pieces where they didnt fit, hoping maybe
just maybe—
they would look like love if I squinted hard enough,
until my boundaries became memories,
until I replaced whatever it was that I had I wanted so badly
With what I’d learned to accept.
Only to wake up next to someone I could hardly stand,
staring at the ceiling,
wondering why am I here,
why did I kiss lips I never wanted to touch,
why did I let hands linger where they didn’t belong,
why did I say yes when I meant no.
I should be grateful though, right?
I should thank them for their persistence,
I should kneel before mediocrity and call it love,
For it was my standards that were the enemy all along.
I used to have a list.
Now I just have a loan,
A loan that I have to repay
in pieces of myself.
copper citrus
buoyant magnet
trail condor
alpine sand