by Riley O’Connell ’15

(From a male perspective)

I fell in love once, with
crystalline curls,
blue blue eyes, and
a plastic cup of crimson wine.
I called her fair and bright, and
she said I wasn’t being either one
by calling her these things.
I fell in love with the way
she always talked in run-on sentences.
My parents warned me that
you can’t make homes out of human beings,
but when you’re 17 and
you don’t have anywhere else to call home,
it’s all you can do to not
inject her smile
directly into your blood stream.

Tell me the difference between
drunk in love and
love-drunk.

I know I said I fell in love once,
but it was actually more of a stumble.
I used her, and
she burned going down.

She made me feel like paper,
like I had swallowed the night and
it had sloshed like ink
over my insides,
but she was still the same,
still mystical and
alluring and
captivating and
lovely and
intoxicating.
But I didn’t mind,
even when she told me about him,
and each syllable popped
like a glass rim lined in salt.
I could taste it on the brim of her mouth
as she moved her lips
to form his name,
and I knew that was it,
but at that point
she had tarred my insides
with nicotine promises
and I couldn’t find the will to quit her.
My parents warned me about
drugs sold on the street,
but never the ones with
crystalline curls and
blue blue eyes
that speak in run-on sentences.