To Sisterhood
Illustration by (@kingsart).
Déjà vu/ It’s that feeling you get/ When you're in a situation all too familiar/ When you can't help but think/ In one way or another/ I've done this before/ Been here before/ This is not my first time/ Making this memory
Déjà vu/ It hits me when we're sitting in the Chinese restaurant/ Walking downtown/ In the coffee shop/ His name/ Irrelevant/ Today/ Forgettable/ Another guy with the emotional depth of a puddle/ Who only sees the beauty on my skin/ Only wants to hear the melody of my zipper falling/ Another bad date/ Another promise I'll never text back/ Mama calls it another time the universe is watching my back/ This one is too full of himself/ The others only wanted me to fix them/ Fill up an empty space/ Become someone I wasn't/ And some just wanted someone to kill time with
Déjà vu/ The date ends/ It's another definitely not the one/ And I know because I've been here before/ Trying to find infinity in empty glances/ In lustful stares/ And conversations like blank lines on paper/ I've had better conversations with the popcorn on the ceiling I think/ I'm warmer holding onto myself at night/ Déjà vu/ How well I know this feeling/ Of a date that truly bombed/ An expired forever/ And I find myself/ Running home/ Knowing I didn't find my soulmate at the bottom of this coffee shop cup/ Or on the edges of his shoulders/ And when night comes my bed is still empty/ I remain unchanged/ The red string tied around his fingers did not connect with mine/ I’m a relationship status left on single/ I’m a party for one/ A dream from the middle of the bed
And after another bad date/ I think that maybe this is how I'm meant to be/ Maybe it's the curse of knowing how to hold your own/ And it's a lovelorn feeling/ Parallel to forcing yourself to leave your hand on a burning stove/ And tonight the galaxy hangs like bassinet above me to lift my spirits/ The stars remind me that no matter what they'll never stop shining/ But still the weight of gravity and solitude seems to crush upon with every breath/ I think that maybe I'm always meant to be the third person who can't fit in with the rest of the group on the sidewalk
Then my phone rings/ And it's not from him/ Or any of my other goodbyes/ Instead I find on the other end of the phone line/ The voices of my forevers/ My best friends/ Truest loves/ Mi hasta la muertes/ Mi infinitas/ Their faces lighting up on a phone screen/ Their laughs being heard from heaven/ Them rolling their eyes like oceans/ “He's trash.”/ “He ain't shit.”/ “You deserve better.”/ “What a waste of space.”/ Déjà vu/ I've been here before/ When my first date was late and I thought I was being blown off/ And with shaky fingers/ I rang up my homegirl and she talked to me until he came through the door/ All the while I was thinking/ Maybe this voice/ My homegirls/ Is all the everything I need/ There all the times I felt my heart breaking because of a boy who couldn't care less/ There all the times I felt the world coming down on me/ There after every bad date/ With phone calls stretching themselves long into the night/ Our voices/ Conversations about God knows what/ Odes to sisterhood/ Odes to eternal love/ Odes to things that last forever/ To never letting go/ Never leaving each other/ Hands forever entwined/ Tongues entangled with the universe/ Some people aren't meant to just touch your soul but rather become a part of it
Déjà vu/ I've been here before/ After another bad date/ After every bad day/ When the world is cold and lonely/ When no one else knows how to make me laugh/ These girls/ My everything/ Pinky swears and promises to never letting go/ Are all the forevers I've always searched for/ The date that never sours/ The love I know will never leave/ The soulmates that never disconnected themselves from me/ Déjà vu/ I know this feeling all too well/ On the phone with my friends/ When the world let's me down/ I've always got them/ And maybe a best friends laugh/ A cup of coffee and their gossip/ Their love that never lets go/ Is what infinity/ What true love/ Feels like at the end ◆
Madelyne is an 18-year-old poet based in Wisconsin, whose passions include writing about her culture, life as a young Latina, as well as love in all of its forms and stages. When she’s not writing, you can find her drinking copious amounts of coffee, binge-watching The Golden Girls, or trying to find the answers to life in fortune cookies. Contact Madelyne Rose through: @madelynerose on Instagram.