The Last Time I'll Write About You

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