Read Poem: CHANGES, by Tia McIntyre

There’s a myriad of things I’d change.

Those drinks with Levi were enough
and I came home just the right amount of giddy
and sleepy to climb into bed
but I guess they weren’t
and I ended up in yours instead,
strangely confident with a stranger
and interlocked in her body too
I let myself spill then
only to lie about the mess
when I left the next morning.

I’d change the fact I ever went in the first place –
but wouldn’t dare fix the way
I watched you make coffee
or bacon that goes in the oven
and how you season your eggs halfway done
and did you know I still do that too?
I’d change the child in me when I didn’t know how to speak
Stomped over hills of dirty snow j
ust to get away
from all the words I never learned to fully say –
that I wasn’t mad at you,
that I was scared of being too much
or maybe not enough
or maybe just not what you were looking for
and so through your door seemed like a better option

I’d let the steady time stay just the same,
in fact I’d add more freeze frames at the parts
I still remind myself to remember.
I felt like I was flying holding your hand
and I never knew there was romance
hidden in discussing the superiority of sauce
but somehow for you, it’s ranch.
I couldn’t even conceive of
washing someone else’s hair,
not with the care of my own routine
yet I found serenity in
shampooing the strands of yours with a swiftness
I’d change letting myself get
so tangled in your web
because maybe then I’d be prepared
for when I fell out of it so abruptly

Only I’d need minutes –
since it took seconds
to process how much I loved your laugh
and how much power
came out your lungs in the morning.
How endearingly bad
can you sing that one song again?
I can’t bear to listen to it anymore
or go to sleep much actually –
not without the warmth of your chest
Neither can I light that candle
or sip out that bottle
or not think of that sweatshirt
still drenched in your scent
but stuffed so far in my closet I’d have to fight just to get to it
I won’t.

I’d change how much of myself

I felt around you –
maybe then I’d have a little me leftover now
me left to give to my friends
who don’t know how much i gave to you –
how much my refusals to hang out
are shrouded in your absence
all my comfort
my nakedness
my hunger
my thirst
my desire
my affection.
I wet my toothbrush next to yours
ran our showers
spent countless hours
honing in on the very human woman
i knew that I can be –
but always alone
and never in company.
I did that with you,
so casually
so easily.

Remember that dude at the Walgreens
who hates his job?
Or all the people
with their very separate lives
and how intently we watched
from the window?
Or how we kissed in the grass
only to laugh at how much
we couldn’t grasp
the moving world around us?
What about the call –
I fell asleep,
you were drunk
and honest
and only wanted to hear my voice
you said
you only wanted to listen to me speak
How about when you told me you’d leave
but that turned into dinner
and then into scooping me
off the couch, into your arms
and off to bed?
Or how you always saved
all the Mochi just for me
even though you’d kill for something sweet

I’d change the way my brain
lingers on it all –
How it allows me to fall
just as quickly
and abruptly as before
It likes to travel to the realm
where we’re still just as real
That’s why it’s been hard to heal

Sometimes I’m okay.

Sometimes I can’t do anything
but sink into how much
I miss you

With all the changes
there’s one thing I’d never touch –
How much I’d been taught to love

Not like I have before,
sitting humans up on shelves
I couldn’t reach
never blinking at their flaws
while they were stupidly raw

Look,
you’re gross when you eat
mindless when you speak
and selfish
when I need you to fucking listen

I’d change thinking
I want
someone who doesn’t truly
care to know me
because I want know me –
I want to know me deeply
and the way I loved you
was too beautiful for you
to have let float away
I couldn’t make you stay
nor can I really make anyone

At the very end,
after the last period in our sentence
there’s just one thing left

There’s just
a growing

me.

GENRE(S): LOVE/HOPE/HURT/RELATIONSHIPS

Author: poetryfest

Submit your Poetry to the Festival. Three Options: 1) To post. 2) To have performed by an actor 3) To be made into a film. View all posts by poetryfest