By: Alexia Whit

I always avoid your corner,

In case you might see me.

When we passed on the street,

I looked the other way.

Your potential presence didn’t keep me from the house show.

Your blatant disinterest, though rarely an issue…

I won’t let it interfere with my life.

Except, I hate that it keeps me, controls me.

I can’t walk by “your” corner. Not by myself, at least.

We both wore stripes, marking us, some sort of twisted fate.

Your friends looked at me and laughed,

Though that could have just been my insecure, narcissistic interpretation.

The model­thin girl, with bleached hair, she obviously came with you there.

I don’t want you. I just don’t want to be ignored.

I woke you up, you said. Probably because of the blood on the floor.

So here we sit, avoiding eye contact, though just a few feet away.

It took me a couple days to realize that you had just used me. I wasn’t in control,

Like I would have wanted to be.

At the house show, though, I felt in control.

I was there. I wasn’t afraid of you.

I was my own person, attempting to be ethereal.

Tipsy on cigarettes and not enough food, I sat on the couch, playing no one’s fool.

I knew people there­ I didn’t need you, but you may have known that all along.

I’m not into you.