Walkaway Jen

You’re begging me to stay with words as hollow as my heart

In your eyes the fear of being alone

You’re not mine, you never were

Finally facing what I’ve always known;

By staying I’m keeping you from her—the One you’ll really love.


Secretly she wonders if she’s ever really been in love

Pictures of former flames with other girls, faces beaming in a way they never did before

They fought her when she walked away until they realized she was right

An appetizer before the entree

The intro before the show

She carefully forgets she once swore she’d never fall in love

Not after witnessing her parents’ divorce

What good can come of anything that can destroy someone so much

Sifting through relationships

Like shirts in a boutique

Trying them on for size and discarding them

Rifling through conversations like pages in a bookstore

Only to leave them unbought

None of them ever fit quite right

None of them ever seem quite right

Settling

Her mama tells her to stop chasing fireworks

To go for the slow burning candle

But why can’t she have both?

Why does it always feel like she’s settling for second best?

They keep the bed warm and play the dutiful husband, the enamored boyfriend

She convinces herself it might be real

A white lie she knows deep down

Until she can’t lie to herself anymore

Edging closer to the door, to freedom

Yet the sting of loneliness gets her every time

How do you feel the seconds, the minutes without someone else?

How do you find peace alone?

Queen of broken hearts

That were never really broken

Their tears dry too quickly

They move on so easily

There’s solace in they didn’t suffer long

She’s too easily replaceable

Too easily replaced