The Girl I Didn’t Want to Be

A Poem

Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash

i’m telling this story twenty years too late,
far from the days when we were friends,
but i’m thinking of you now and i —
and i —
i want to say sorry
because you were the girl
i didn’t want to be

it’s silly, maybe, that your words
became a code to live by
when i didn’t dream in prose —
but you did, every time,
and i took up the pen
like it would save me
when nothing else could

you weren’t a bad girl —
though no one should judge
(and my mom did, sorry) —
but i didn’t like your lip gloss
or your purses or your low-cut tops
while you smiled wide at boys
who didn’t deserve your attention

i thought you were wrong
for kissing pillows
and throwing yourself
every which way,
anything to land on him,
but i know better now
because i’ve grown up