by Amberlee Clark
Until Then Goodbye
Torn between wishing/
It had never happened/
And being glad it did.
-------------------------
I’m feeling rather grey again/
In this moment of devastation./
My devastation/
At almost falling in love/
Believing I could trust it /
That I would be safe/
If I placed my heart in your hands/
Oh god/
I wanted to fall in love/
With you/
----------------------------
Will there be another/
Who will treat me with care,/
Compassion, reverence, respect?/
The evidence suggests/
No/
I’m afraid I’m much safer/
Being Alone/
Again/
Default setting./
------------------------------
Fuck/
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I hate that I was right/
Because I knew it was coming/
I felt foreshadowing/
Twisting and crawling in my guts/
Telling me I had every reason to/
Be afraid/
That the other shoe had to drop/
And it was just a matter of time/
And the time was now/
And the time was probably wrong/
From the beginning/
Nothing is perfect/
-----------------------------
It will be a long time/
Before I start to fall in love again/
Because now that I know I can/
I will want it to be as good/
As we were/
I’ll want the next one to treat me/
As gently and kindly as you did/
I’ll want to be as good of friends with them/
As I was with you/
And that’s a ridiculous standard/
For anyone to live up to/
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I had so many plans for us/
I wish I could make them realities
-----------------------------
I’ll see you someday/
Until then/
Goodbye
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(I love you)
Leftover Gifts of a Dead Relationship
I must divorce myself from the gifts you gave me
Little tokens full of promises
Foregone
Linger in the space that you evacuated
The space in my life I carved out for you
Now I’m forced to reclaim my territory
But it’s a minefield of remnant reminders
Of the way things were supposed to be;
The birthday gifts and shared blankets
Of our past
Intended to ensure a bright future that
Died
I must purge your gifts of their meaning
When I encounter recollections
Attached to objects and phrases, movies and games
I will shoot them on sight
How can I survive?
If every time I turn around
I’m assaulted by what I wanted
And what I got instead?
When I pull the snuggie you gave me
Up around my shoulders at night
I shouldn’t have to think about how
I gave all of myself to you
And you regifted me
So I will execute each memory
And burn the bodies on a funeral pyre
So I can keep all my belongings
And leave the pieces of you behind
Smoldering
***
I must hold onto the lessons you taught me
But I must erase the instructor
Because you taught me I can be beautiful
Despite not being a classic beauty
And that all the little, unspeakable things
That hide in the shadowy corners of my mind
Don’t reduce me to a derelict thing
That I can find love that will help me to grow
And find joy in sharing my life with someone else
That even though it’s terrifying
It is possible to trust someone
Without being afraid that they’ll break you…
And I learned that even when the person
I want to open my whole heart to
Leaves a vacancy in my life
Riddled with memories and tokens of affection
In their absence
It won’t break me
If I can just adopt these lessons
And pretend I had known them all along
Then I can plant them in all that empty territory
You left me to retrieve
And let them root and bloom
Until all I find in your place
Is an endless overgrown field
Of my own making
That reminds me not of you
And all your gifts
But of the value inside of me
***
I must divorce myself from the gifts you gave me
I must purge them of their meaning
I must hunt down the memories and leave them no recourse
I must immolate them
I must keep your lessons and erase you from my heart
So I can wear that goddamn t-shirt you bought me
In Peace
Man of My Dreams
What were you doing in my dream last night?
Because last I checked
You weren’t the Man of my Dreams anymore
We were a stream that parted in the forest
And flowed in two different directions
Cascading along separate courses
On to new adventures
Apart
So why were you in my dream last night?
I thought the chapter on us
Was finished.
After all, I closed the book.
And I don’t need an epilogue
When you offered to keep your word
To take me to that damn museum
Because you knew I’d love it
I released you from your promise.
Because I knew our spark
Might be rekindled
And burn the whole place down
I really don’t want
The story of my life
To be a romance
Falling in love is lovely
But there is so much more to life
I have big plans and bigger dreams
That you are not a part of
So why the hell were you in my dream last night?
To be perfectly frank
Your little cameo was ridiculous
And made no sense at all.
It would honestly be funny
If I wasn’t so baffled by your presence
We don’t talk
We’re not even friends
I never bump up against memories of you
And feel that twinge of pain
Most days you don’t even enter my mind
When I do think of you,
I think of you fondly
Like looking at a picture
In a photo album
Worn with age
And brushed with nostalgia’s haze
But I don’t ever feel the need
To reach out
Feel the brush of your lips,
Pulse of your heart,
Or the hum of your voice.
I take comfort in myself now.
And wouldn’t it be so sad
To fall in love with you
All over again?
Wouldn’t that be just like
Walking backwards?
Having you in my dream
Feels like going in reverse
We split
And flowed in two directions
Our chapter in this book
Has closed
I can wear that t-shirt you got me
Without ever thinking of you
By all accounts
It’s over
And you are not
The Man of my Dreams
So I really don’t understand
What you were doing
In my dream last night.
The Crossroads of Nothing and You
So
Here I am
After all these years
At the crossroads of nothing
And you
Maybe the choice should be easy
But doubt keeps gnawing
Gnawing away at my heart
Nibbling on my mind
Eating me up from the inside out
It’s either nothing
Or it’s you
And by nothing I mean possibility
The possibility of a new love
With a new someone
With no shared history or shared memories
A clean, blank canvas
Maybe I can love them, this someone
Maybe they will make me feel
The way you did
(The way you do?)
But that’s just a possibility
And then there’s you
A real person with a shape and name
With a hand I can hold
And a face I can touch
And a kiss that still lights me on fire
Even after all this time apart
Now you offer me the same love
I just barely got a taste of
Served on a silver platter
And it would be so easy
So easy
To just eat my fill
But it’s you
You who broke my heart
I worked so hard to get past you
To move on And I did
I finally did
But somehow the path forward led me here
To the crossroads of nothing and you
I never thought I’d be here
Because I never thought I’d see you again
Let alone walk hand in hand with you
Down the street for everyone to see
Somehow we found our way back together
Is it romance? Is it retrograde?
Is there something to the nonsense
Those astrology bitches are always saying?
I wish I knew
What I do know is this:
If you were anyone else
I would have already fallen
Into your arms
Maybe all this time I’ve been searching for love
I’ve really just been searching for you
And maybe that’s just a cliché
And I would be better off
With all the possibility that nothing can bring
So
Here I am
After all these years
At the crossroads of nothing
And you
Amberlee Clark was born in Dallas, Texas, where she discovered she had a natural talent for writing at a young age. However it wasn't until her senior year of high school, when she participated in the Young DFW writers program, that she developed her voice as a poet. In 2016, she moved to Los Angeles to study acting and received her B.F.A. in 2019 from AMDA. Since graduating, Amberlee has become involved in multiple theatre companies around LA. Also Amberlee is the creator of Theatre of NOTE's poetry slam (NOTE Slam), which has helped her to make connections with poets from all over Los Angeles.