BEEP.
Clothes are dry.
Sweatpants of a best-friend
who I occasionally like to hold hands with.
Gym shorts of a good friend
who I occasionally like to make out with.
Pajama pants of an ex-boyfriend.
Who I'm occasionally still in love with.
This poem
is about the laundry load of guilt
I've been carrying.
This poem about how
I can run myself through endless cycles
yet never feel clean.
There's something dirty about a single girl.
There's something secret about her sleeping arrangements.
There's something whisper worthy about her ring finger
and why she ended her past two promising relationships
in search of things like “self-reliance” and “happiness”.
There's something heartbreaking about becoming the girl you judged in high school.
There's something liberating about becoming the girl you judged in high school.
Still, these songs that come on my iPod
sing about together forevers
and evers and evers
and I never had a love that burned strong and long enough
to really last.
And there's something shameful about failing to “make it work”,
but there's something terrifying
about eating one flavor of ice cream for the rest of my life,
and I use that an*logy only because it sounds pretty,
in actuality I'm lactose intolerant and have hella sensitive teeth.
And I'm not saying I hate the idea of a one and only.
I love the idea in theory. So far it just hasn't made me happy.
And I'm not saying it never could.
I guess. I'm just- what I'm trying to say.
Is that being a single girl at twenty-two
feels really f**ing good.
And I'm done.
With this self-s*ut-shaming guilt.
This, get your life-together girl guilt.
As if graduating college wasn't enough.
As if I need to be aboard the train headed for the chapel,
in order to be on the right track.
I don't want to be on a track,
trains are loud and scary.
I'd much rather be in a quiet forest,
flirting with the cute lumberjacks.
And there's nothing shameful about this winding path.
There's nothing unclean
about these bare feet dancing pirouettes in the dirt.
There's nothing ugly
about the way the leaves fall,
crashing in and out of love
bleeding colors onto each other,
not like stains
but like forever memories,
reminding me
that temporary
does not equate to
empty --
that I will be so full
of love on my path.
And that it's okay if I get lost
because exploration excites me.
So thank you society, really,
but I think I'm gonna go it without the map.