"Ode to a Text" an original slam poem
"Ode to a Text"
By: Robin Lin Ryding
Most days, I can survive knowing what we had was love, though lost.
Other days, I sit in silence trying to remember what it felt like when your arms were locked around me
The smell of your shoulder as I nuzzled into you on a cold winter’s night when the sky was alight with a future more luminescent than the brightest star
In those moments, our worries were dimmer than the soft, pale glow of the partially covered moon resting behind the glass of our window.
In my darkest moments, I am drawn to memories like a moth fixated on the flicker of a flame
Echoes of your laughter sit stagnant in my stale room clouded by the soft song of stifled sobs emanating from my chest
There I sit, worlds away where I thumb through a rolodex of recollections I’ve saved like souvenirs
Images of time spent together dance through my head like flitting fairies causing mischief
Wreaking havoc
Opening wounds that are still too fragile yet to heal
And I rip them open
I Savagely search for what I’ll never find
A solace invisible to my naked eye
An answer to why did you lie?
How could you say such sweet nothings sewn together by promises you were unable to keep?
How do you sleep?
Because all I do is weep for the time we wasted when I believed that our love was deeper than superficial scars and bloated bodies now clothed in regret
Each night is plagued by fantasy
Desperate dreamings of how it went wrong and why I went along with the feelings my gut first dismissed
I lie on the bed we once shared
Your side of the mattress now littered with papers and books so I won’t have to look at the empty space your absence creates when my eyes blink awake every morning.
How I long for those times when this bed felt so warm
When your body lay beside mine and I’d snuggle up beside you - a tired arm tenderly tucking itself round my waist
Mornings filled with giggles and kisses
Just knowing you were there at my side
But I cannot live in our memories
There is no room in the past for this person I’ve become
Words you scrawled over my empty pages have been thrown and misplaced
So easily erased, you smudged me out of your life the way shadows are extinguished by sunlight
I became the toy you’ve outgrown sitting on a shelf with my phone
Days drag on and I check for words that tell me I’m still on your mind
But you don’t wish to rewind to a time when the magic still mystified and glorified the concept of a soul mate
Two beings, hopelessly intertwined
And though you say you wish not to lead me on, it is myself that holds that torch
Forever lighting a wick that will not burn despite my best efforts to coax it on
Each night, I lie awake and compulsively romanticize and fantasize about the look in your eyes you gave away for free before fading into the background of our waning masterpiece
They say that this is grief
That these swarming thoughts will fade and one day I’ll wake up and feel fine
But how are you fine? Why did your heart not break like mine? How could our feelings not align - it was seven years we spent together!
Seven years of Holding hands
Of making plans
And we laughed and we cried and you stuck by my side just to walk out the door so then what was this for?
Why let me love you so much to leave me only wanting more?
I think I just want what we were
What we will never be again
Without your love and your support, I’m not quite sure who I am and I’m scared to be alone…
I’m just so scared to be alone.
Your words read like knives I have to fight to stay alive
And though I try, I know I’m not ready to say goodbye because I don’t want this to be the end…
I type ‘I miss you’ and hit ‘send’