all the things i wish i'd said

All the Things I Wish I’d Said A Collection of Poetry By Alec Prevett

Copyright © 2015 Alec Prevett. All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

www.alecprevett.com

For Annelise

“Time works so hard for us, if only we can let it.”

—Tana French, The Likeness

All the Things I Wish I’d Said

All the Things I Wish I’d Said Alec Prevett

Hello Some days, there is nothing I desire more than to speak to you. I want to memorize the subtle changes in your voice as your emotions leak out. I want the river flowing from your lips to lull me to sleep each night. I want to be the confidant to whom you confess all the things that twist your bones when you think of them. I could spend hours listening to anything you say. I’d be so grateful if you even said hello.


within a Holy Hell Don’t you dare ask if I have regrets, because you know God damn well I do. And Jesus, who could have guessed I’d still be thinking of you so long after you ceased to be relevant; Who could have guessed I’d be this crushed? There is nothing romantic or noble about this anymore. It’s just plain pitiful. Sometimes, I wish you’d never existed in the first place. Other times, I hope that you always will. I feel as if I were in a parallel universe, where pain is really joy, and happiness is agony. Too stubborn to move on from you, and this upturned realm you left me in, I replay the memories I’ve kept again and again just to keep myself trapped in this Holy Hell.


I want to be your protagonist. I want you to fall in love with me as you fall in love with your favorite character of your latest book. I want to be printed onto the pages of your life and described by a nameless, faceless author as the one person who can catch your fickle eye. I want to be what fills your vision as you daydream in your classes, while teachers struggle for your unattainable attention. I want to fall in love with you, as you fall in love with me: in between the pages.


GPS Your eyes are an outdated GPS that keeps me going in circles; I get lost each and every time, but I do not mind.


I hate it all. I hate your cigarettes. I hate the music on your iPod. I hate your teeth. I hate seeing them dazzle between your lips when you smile at me. I hate the way you always drive five miles below the limit. I hate how wonderful you look with sunglasses perched atop your head, holding back your bangs. I hate when you drink. I hate your lipstick. I hate how badly I want to feel its mark on my cheek and neck. I hate that I smile whenever you smile, even if I don’t want to. I hate that I hate your cigarettes, and I hate that I hate how you drive. I hate how hard it is to hate you. But I still do.


I miss you. I miss you. Like the hammer misses the carpenter’s weathered gloves, like the grass misses the bare feet of healthy & jubilant children, like the sky misses the wings of birds flown south, like the night misses the blaze of deceased stars, like the withered man misses the vitality of youth, like the empty bed misses the hopeless romantic, like the tulip misses the kiss of the sun.


All that is Pure and Gracious If I were to wrap up all the beauty in the world into one splendid package, it would be dull in comparison to you. I could capture all that is pure and gracious: the luscious and unspoiled forests, the roaring white waterfalls, the newborn children with fists tightly curled, the setting sun over a deep indigo ocean, every kiss ever born under the shimmer of the moonlight. I could gather the beauty of all these things, and gather more beauty still, yet even their combined luminescence could not outshine a fraction of you.


Hands dressed in Hoarfrost I still have your paintings. I’ve kept them all; hidden from the world, mementos known only to me. I even have a note you once scrawled for me. It’s sad in tone, but a treasure all the same, because, like a gentle river, your handwriting flows across it. It’s strange how something so common as paper could become so significant simply because you imprinted your words onto it. God, how vast the difference between our pale hands. Yours, wrapped in gloves of ice and satin, can do only good, can create only good, while mine have no use but to destroy.


Jupiter Incarnate The sun shines because you are smiling. The sky weeps only when you do.


Ghost I’d be lying if I said that I don’t see you everyday when I walk to work. I see you standing on the corner. I see you sitting on the bus. I see your name on the street signs. Each time, you are a little dimmer: a slowly fading image that can never be restored. Your projection grows darker and darker each time that it is displayed. I fear the day I walk to work and don’t see you at all.


Kalology, and the perfect Subject God damn it, I don’t know what it is about you that captivates me with such undisputable force but I’m quite sure that, even as I hung from the gallows, I would smile if I saw you. It must be your hair. The way it glows in such a fierce red, I sometimes wonder whether it mimicked fire, or if fire mimicked it. But that can’t quite be it. It must be the way it frames your pale, pale face, and your rosy cheeks. Or maybe it’s just the way all those shades of red and pink make your blue eyes so much more than blue.


Last Place When I see you, I feel a burning agony within my chest, like I just ran twelve miles through a frigid morning. and When I see him, I feel a great inadequacy deep in my gut, like when I was the kid who got picked last in gym, or never got picked at all. and When you say I’m not your type, I feel a disgusting plummeting sensation throughout my body, as if I were a skydiver whose parachute refused to pull, and was forced to watch as the ground rise to meet his fall.


Apricity, Coveted I’m jealous of him. He gets to hold your hand. He gets to kiss your cheek. He gets to buy you flowers when you’re down. I wish I could tell you. I’m jealous of him. I’m jealous of every gift and gesture you bestow upon each other. I’m jealous of every smile you’ve ever conjured from him. I’m jealous of every time he’s heard that you love him. I wish I could tell you. I’m jealous of him, but there’s nothing I can do. I wish I could tell you.


The Day the Sun Fell from the Sky This love is incomparable to the ugly face that is the sunset. That pitiful sun is nothing but a hideous glare, It struggles to illuminate the broken faces and tainted hearts below its face. It shines on in shame, dim and drab compared to us. This love is unmatched in cruelty, compared to a stubborn drought; the Earth cracks from our heat and dehydrated forests turn to ash in its wake. The land will be scourged of those who would not see our love last, if only they had their chance at extinguishing it. This love is unrivaled in intensity, compared to the Sun’s rays, even as it hangs dauntingly above our heads. I’m sure that Helios himself will crash down from the sky one day, just so that he may kiss our feet.


Killer, Pale eyes My heart wasn’t designed to beat as fast as it does when our eyes meet.


Hollow History Tiny dots on an endless timeline, that’s all you’ll ever be, from now on. The life we shared, and all its memories, now summed up as measly marks on a chart, mingling together with others from before, and after. Positioned erratically on a calendar, serving as brief reminders of past events, like a history book of all our failures. These points, each representing a memory – these points are all I have, the only things that prove that what we had was real. They are fossils, only providing a glimpse of what used to be, with no power to bring me back to their time. Tiny, useless dots.

Inspired by La Dispute’s “Woman (in Mirror)”


Annual A small part of me still misses you, and I feel bad for it, because tomorrow is your birthday. That small part of me, however undeserving, hopes that I will see you. It wants me to pick you up from work and take you out to do all the things you love. It wants me to be happy, but only by making you happy. That part of me does not realize that no matter how great of a day tomorrow could be, it would eventually mean nothing, because I would eventually lose interest again, like I always do. I’m better off staying still, refusing to drag you back down into this spiral. I’ll remain still, content in knowing that I cannot ruin your birthday if I do not show up.


Aches (How Painful) It hurts. To see you today, and everyday. The loveliness that radiates from you, it causes me physical pain, jabbing at my throat, and chest, and knees. But I don’t mind. I would rather suffer through this pain, like a right of passage, than ever look away from you.


The Destructive Tendencies of Water A teacher of mine once told me “Water is the must destructive substance to the human body,” despite the fact that we wither away without its presence. In its embrace, it chips away at our bodies, as if we were stone, until we are broken to pieces and carried forever downstream. The statement made me question whether or not water was reimagined to create you. Your presence, too, slowly wears at me until I am nothing, like a never-‐‑ending current, but I know I’d die slowly and painfully if I went a week without you.


Void The sunlight fades, as does my strength. I know I cannot keep you here any longer. You must leave, as the sunlight does each day, but you will not return to announce the morning’s come. It is a desolate sight to look up into the empty void that is the night, and see nothing more than when I look where you once slept. If I could paint with any skill, I would color in the missing bits of that onyx sky, and the empty space beside me. But, unfortunately, I lack the skill to illustrate you the way that you rightfully should be.


Golden Golden. Your hair. Your voice. Every aspect of your being. Everything emits a lustrous glow, as if you were the element incarnate. Perhaps it was you that inspired the birth of sculpting; perhaps all art was born in an attempt to mimic you. If this is so, then all art must be futile, for no degree of skill could ever craft a work that could contest your radiant image. No alchemist in history could conjure gold as pure as yours.


Firm Grip (‘Round My Neck) Alright, yeah, I miss you. I hate to admit it, because it’s pretty damn stupid to admit, but it’s true. But just because you loved me doesn’t mean that you had the right to cage me. I may have loved to look at you, and laugh with you, and fall asleep with you, but that won’t make me forget how tightly you strangled me each night. I may miss you, but I will not come back. I won’t leap into another cell just so that you can keep your eye on me. I may miss you, but that only makes walking away a tiny bit harder.


I tried, I Truly Did I’m sorry that I couldn’t fill the void that is your heart. My efforts were too feeble, it seems. Perhaps I shall try again tomorrow, and fail again. If I fail tomorrow, I shall try the next day. If I fail the next day, then I shall try the next. If I fail the next, then I shall keep trying, until all the rifts and cracks I made are filled.


Siren In your presence, I am powerless. Trapped beneath your thumb like an ant, yet I’ve felt no greater sense of freedom outside your grasp. With eyes like fool’s gold, I can’t avoid being entranced. While I burn alive with the love I feel for you, you swim in the sea of hopes that others have in being yours. A brutal siren is all you are, yet you do no wrong in my eyes. I am doomed.


Lost Plans I still wonder where we could have gone. I still tell myself that we’ll get there someday.


I am very appreciative of all who have continued to read this collection until its close. It is my sincerest hope that each of you has found something enjoyable within

these pages.

Thank you for reading.

End.

all the things i wish i'd said

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