the tale of the mouse and the caterpillar

things get better before they get worse. we were in alice in wonderland together once when i was a high caterpillar & you a swimming mouse & the summer prioritized us, carpooling in your tesla, taking weird photos & okay with the idea of you being more photogenic, sticky makeup & thick scratchy fabric on our bodies in our attempt to act anything but human

but we were human. when i was five, i was cinderella & thought mice could be nothing but friends. that lasted for maybe twelve years & things get better before they get worse, spending late afternoons above the amphitheater making up stories about who littered the beer caps of all things but also who wouldn’t beg to drink in august? stringing together these memories like knots on a timeline of tug & war but it’s over now.

but who else would paint me a canvas of a show i never bought merch for? who else would walk up the hill with me, silent but promising our silence would never be less than comfortable. less than the biking plans too easy for you to cancel & the secret santa gift i delivered two weeks late.

things get better before they get worse & worse & i wish i weren’t outside the cafeteria ignoring you cry over someone else’s signature in your yearbook, long like the letters i used to write to you. did you already forget all the washi rolls i emptied just to decorate our pen pal envelopes? should i too forget the trips to dairy queen where you said i was the safest you ever felt? but i feel

like an idiot still kneeling in this grass taking your tray to the trash for you kicking the ants off your soles for you but doesn’t the saying actually go: things get worse before they get better.

you think i'm just a caterpillar again. with no flag to follow but a changing girl but i'm absolem, every decision i make is absolute. i always come back but i never turn back

the sky running in waves, my fate stitched along these strips of cloud but unrelated to you

my poems a team of snipers hidden from you

my music a solo wonderland & i'll get better. forgive my cliché but i was forced to ask who are you yet now i know i was born to say, curiouser, oh curiouser, the beauties i can be without you.