by Dawn Lanuza
Also by Dawn Lanuza
The Boyfriend Backtrack
What About Today
The Hometown Hazard
Break-Up Anniversary
The Last Time I’ll Write About You copyright © 2018 by Dawn Lanuza. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.
Andrews McMeel Publishing
a division of Andrews McMeel Universal
1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106
www.andrewsmcmeel.com
www.dawnlanuza.com
ISBN: 978-1-4494-9496-4
Edited by Layla Tanjutco
Cover design by Reginald Lapid (society6.com/reglapid)
Illustrations by Luntian Dumlao (instagram.com/luntiandumlao)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017951835
Editor: Patty Rice
Art Director: Holly Swayne
Production Editor: Elizabeth A. Garcia
Production Manager: Cliff Koehler
Digital Production: Kristen Minter
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To young hearts,
Keep beating.
Keep breaking.
Keep falling in love.
The First
SUNBEAM
You light up the room
Wherever you go
With your wit and charm
You turn things around.
You light up the room
You’re a rush of blood
You’re a ray of sun
You lighten me up.
THE OBJECT OF MY
I love the way you look
Your eyes, they twinkle
Your lips, they curl
Your whole spirit lifts.
I love the way you look
As I watch you across the room
That is until you looked at me
And nothing else could compare.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU
Your hand
How you held the small of my back
Your fingers
How they grasped mine as we crossed the street
Your feet
How they led us to your room
The chain on your neck
How it slid through my fingers as I pulled you in
Your eyes
How they spoke to me
Your bed
How it welcomed us both
Your lips
Oh, how they silenced my doubts
You are the dream
But I’ve had wake-up calls
IN A NUTSHELL
I’m not brave enough to love you
The same way
You’re not strong enough to take me on.
“He was good for you.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Then why’d you let him go?”
“I wasn’t good for him.”
BOTTOM LINE
This is how it’s going to be:
A million unanswered questions,
A thousand books you’d never ask me to read,
A hundred movies we’d never fall asleep in together,
A couple of songs I won’t hear you sing in the shower,
A few words I would never interrupt with a kiss,
A piece of you, I’ll miss every single day.
This is how it’s going to be.
I should be alright with that.
TRUTH
You read these things
And you ask the world,
Why doesn’t it happen
To someone like you?
Deep in your heart,
You know the answer:
It’s because you don’t let it.
AND NOW I’M RUINED
When I met you
I always wondered
How I’d never met
Anyone quite like you
When we parted
I always wondered
How everyone else
Reminded me of you
DECOY
You’re not it
Although you filled in that spot quite convincingly.
You’re not it
Can you get up from that seat so we can move along accordingly?
CONSPIRACY THEORY
We always had our thing
Even when we were fighting
We were allies,
Partners in crime
We built each other’s walls up
To keep others out.
The Pull
CONFESSION
I told everyone
I love you
Sorry if they knew before you
To be fair,
I think everyone knew
Before I did, too.
CONSISTENCY
I don’t think you think of me
The way I think of you
For you do so only sporadically
While I have you in me
Constantly.
HEAD COUNT
How many of us
Have slept in your bed
Which one did you intend to keep
How many of us
Held up your head
While you continued to sleep
How many of us
Believed the promises you made
How many did you let weep
REASONS FOR REJECTION
I hope you know
I said no
Not because I didn’t want to
I knew better than to rush it
We always seem to fall
Into each other too easily
So much so that when we part
It’s like Velcro
Gone, in a blink of an eye
Painless then
But the sound lingers
Then haunts
I hope you know
I want more
Than that day stretched into hours
I want you every day
Kissing me good night
Til tomorrow
And tomorrow
And tomorrow
And tomorrow
And tomorrow
And tomorrow.
MIGRATORY BIRDS
I watched you move
From girl to girl
Or has it always been
You, moving on from her
With me
To another
Has it always been
Me, watching you
Never quite knowing
How to be with yourself?
HH
You’re the face of innocence,
Of sunny days,
Long and leisurely walks
And happy talks.
I liked remembering you this way.
You’re the face of change,
Of late nights,
Beer bottles, ashtrays
And ignored calls.
You broke my heart this way.
You’re the face of my youth,
Of second and too many chances,
Two clasped hands
At the back of the car.
I wish we could have just stayed.
THE NTH BREAKFAST
Hot coffee
Burnt tongue
Confiding exclusively
Of woes unsung
Warm hands
Kind smile
Eyes seeking to understand—
But you lie.
METAMORPHOSIS
for Anton
I built a cocoon made of stories of you.
I intend to stay with your memories
Where it’s warm and good.
I built a cocoon made of stories of you.
But one day,
I’ll have to break through.
HABITS
A lot of things changed between us
Like how I used to hate breakfast
And how you’d always insist
Now I’m craving pancakes
Coffee, bacon
Even at odd hours of the day
Meanwhile you’ve learned
To stop asking these things
And cared less if I’ve missed a meal
A lot of things changed between us
Like how I cared after you left,
And how you just didn’t.
PEACE TALKS
You realize
This war could end
If we could just
Whisper the words,
I’m sorry
As our lips crash?
Catch the pain
I’ll take yours
Here, take mine
Back and forth.
Let’s communicate
With teeth and lips and tongue.
The Kiss
RATIONALE
All this time you’ve been trying
To undress me
From head to toe
All this time I’ve insisted
That I’ve got scars
Underneath it all
All this time that you don’t have anymore
All these fears that I’ve kept close
Yet
All this time, I’ve been unraveling
With all these hopes that you’re still watching
I doubt it.
But here you go.
6 A.M.
Waking up is never the same
Not without your arms tangled up in mine
Not without your kiss on my cheek
Not without you telling me,
“You look beautiful today.”
OTHER MEANS OF COMMUNICATION
I like how our hands seem to have their own conversations, apart from our mouths.
I like how we tell things we can’t seem to say out loud.
In these spaces between,
Our fingers meet,
And they fit.
Perfectly.
There are no walls.
No secrets.
I like how our hands know how to be together
At times we can’t seem to.
RESOLVE
I could keep saying
One more
Just one more
But when does it end?
REFLECTION
The thing is,
I used to remember your laugh.
I hear it behind my ear,
It tickles me.
I feel your breath.
I sense your nerves.
I keep this memory of you
For the longest time.
Now that I’ve forgotten
I tried to remember.
Trust me,
I’m the only one left trying to remember.
What it’s like to have you near
That I can feel your breath
The tremble in your voice
As it creates waves in me
Stirring,
Kneading,
Making me faint.
This is all imaginary
For I can no longer remember.
I am only creating the memory.
This is no longer you.
This is all me.
NORTHERN STAR
Look up at the sky
Like once upon a time
Look up and I
Will guide you back to me.
I meant to keep you
But I didn’t want to be kept
See the problem?
MODERN VAMPIRES
The sun burns my skin
In your bed as we lay
It’s a clear sign:
We’re not made for the day.
We’re creatures of the night
Straddled in the sheets
The dawn is in sight
We part as soon as we meet.
GRIM, NOT A FAIRY TALE
He’s no hero
He’s the villain
She took all the blame;
He skillfully played the game.
He’s no prince
She’s learned since
Now she wears armor for skin
And keeps her heart closed in.
The Talk
SUSTENANCE
When I think about you in huge doses,
I drown.
In despair,
In longing,
In guilt.
I learned to think of you
In tiny rations
Like meals delivered to my plate
Three times a day
Each time enough
To nourish me,
To make me hope,
To keep my heart alive.
THE WORST SLEEPOVER
Is there anything stranger
Than sleeping on the same bed
With a man who has changed?
Not in who he was,
But in the way that
He has looked at you.
A week ago he promised
This time, he’ll stay
But his eyes are worlds away
You held on to him
In that forsaken bed
He’s distant, cold—
Nothing else could be said.
ARE YOU OKAY?
I’m shouting this to the universe
In case you needed to answer.
THE FEAR
I used to thank you
For making me feel beautiful
And you assured me,
I am.
Since you left
All I’ve felt is horrible
And I’m so scared you realized,
I am.
OUR SONG
That one morning
You told me,
“To the ends of the Earth.”
Nothing more.
You were quoting that song
So I didn’t say anything
But I keep going back to that
Now that we are on polar opposites.
Intentionally or not
We’ve drifted apart
But I keep holding on to that
Like a promise.
Cause I still think of you
While I’m safely tucked here
Hoping I could reach out
To where you’ve run away.
UNASKED QUESTION
Was I a secret not worth sharing
Or
Was I a fact not worth telling?
REVOLVING DOOR
Maybe you wanted me to hate you
Cause God knows I love you
Maybe you hate me too
Cause why else would you
W
alk in and out of my life
Like you were in a revolving door?
I watch you at it
Spinning and spinning
I wait for you to decide,
To stop,
Look at me,
Come inside.
Stay?
Maybe you wanted me to hate you
Forget that I love you
So I can stop watching
And you can stop spinning
Cause God knows it’s exhausting
To be inside that revolving door.
And maybe
Just maybe
That’s why you hate me
Cause it was just you spinning
As it always has been
In that revolving door.
HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, KID
Don’t tell me I can’t get over it
You stood by my window that night
And waited for me to come out
Don’t
You
Dare
Put
This
All
On
Me
You loved me just as much
In fact
You loved me too much
The only difference is that
You loved me when I didn’t care enough
And I loved you when you stopped.
NO APOLOGIES
I wasn’t ready
You thought I wasn’t willing
I told you I’m sorry
You just stopped believing.
LIKE A GREEK TRAGEDY
