Thwarting the Runaround

I am full of inadequacy and

full of resentment and

full of jealousy and

crying comes quietly, locked behind doors.

I step forward an inch and fall prey to your

avalanche of progression and see you've moved

further than I in the world we both love like you have some

piece that I don't understand.

I grapple with words and I bend them and

fold them like origami nuisances all

crumpled and creased and I hate that you never

misplace

one

seam.

I watch how you dance with your art on your nimble

twinkle toes and hold your sparkling future lights as they

glow and I drop mine and step on the feet of the damn things I love.

I watch as you do all the things that I do with

more grace and more confidence more self-assurance

and you're not awake in the evening thinking of me in

a green sort of way.

I hate that my fumbling and punctuated stabs at

creativity and originality and poignancy are

cleaved straight in two with a swish of your terrible

pen that is terrible, yes, but great if you're anyone else other than me.

And I hate that he chose you, that he still thinks of you and

I think of him and I wonder what would have been different if

I kept my mouth shut and stayed unhappy, but a different

unhappy where I still had him and didn't try to make things better.

It's plain that you'll always be better at boys and at girls and

at friends and at art and at living the life that I've been dreaming

of with the fire I blame you for dousing and dampen my spirit with

tears that you probably cry better than I've ever cried because tears

are cliche in a poem.

And there's nothing that I could ever do because maybe

you do sit and home and think of me enviously but I'll

never ask and you'll never write silly verses about how great I

am and how you wish you were me and how my words

have perfect origami folds.

Maybe the truth is that we both make seams, we both

make waves and the ripples extend to the places where

we can't see their marks on the beach and we can't see if

our words have the quality of the seawater that makes the

jagged pieces of glass smoothen out and calm themselves down.

Or maybe you just don't think about me at all and I'm

just trying to make things seem better or worse than they

are anything other than just what they are because if things

just are then what I see could be right and maybe

I'm right (but you're righter than me.)