To The Boy I Loved And Cannot Forgive (Yet)

Image credit: Grace Douglas

To the boy I loved, and still love, but cannot forgive just yet

We were inseparable, 

we jumped into each other's lives abruptly and unexpectedly. 

You saw the fine line I walked for years. 

We stood on the roofs of cars and called it car surfing. 

I taught your little sisters to drive gear while sitting out the car window, 

leaning on the roof smoking cigarettes. 

I swore that you only liked me when I was fun, extroverted and entertaining. 

I was right, wasn’t I? 

I was always right when it came to you. 

You knew the pain,  

the slicing and dicing 

I believed that I would never love you back. 

I insisted on ensuring that I was the artsy, rebellious friend, 

you checked up on me and passed my story around like you were 

“Keeping up with the Kardashians”. 

But now, I am an old disregarded art project. 

Thrown under the bed, 

untouched, ripped, broken, and no longer workable. 

You left when you realized that I am that kind of person that stares shit dead in the eye, 

fights on the edge of cliffs, dynamite with a faulty fuse.

You left so your soul no longer had to tremble with fear. 

Walking out the doorway, 

telling my story, 

one that was not yours to tell 

to the people that were not meant to hear it.

Coward.

This poem was written by Grace Douglas (Ngāti Kahungungu)

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