Poetry

She Should Have Been In Chalk

Most of my brain is like a chalkboard.

The people and events in it drawn carefully with a piece of chalk, so small now, that my fingertips brush the surface of the board with every new addition.

My favorite part about chalk is how temporary it is.

I can erase my thoughts and wash down the board to replace them with newer, happier things.

 

I have a separate part of my brain, a special part, reserved for the permanent things in my life.

This special part of my brain is covered in Sharpie drawn doodles of the people who I’d like to never forget.

I’ve never messed up when it’s come to sorting my thoughts and the people in my life.

It’s always been clear to me who’s temporary and who’s permanent.

Who should be drawn in chalk and who in Sharpie.

 

While finishing him in Sharpie, my trains of thought collided.

I drew her in the permanent ink, as well.

I’d messed up.

 

As days passed, I tried to ignore my mistake.

Eventually, my thoughts revolved around her and the ink seeped deeper into my brain.

She’d been practically branded into my mind.

Every thought I had, somehow led back to her, regardless of how often I tried to cover her ink in different ways.

 

Her and the beads she’d worn around her neck haunted me.

The way she spoke about him and how beautiful she found the necklace echoed in my head.

She had made herself at home amongst my happy thoughts and turned them rancid.

In my personal Memory Lane, she’d went around and touched every yellow orb, every happy moment, and turned them all blue.

 

She’d tainted every joyful thought of him.

She’d shattered my trust in him.

 

“I let her,” I tell myself.

“I let her do this.”

 

I had let her etch herself into my head for good, and for that, I hate her.

I should have drawn her in chalk.

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