Assorted Poetry

Respectfully

I didn’t know if I should write “Dear” or “Greetings”

That would be innocuous

the standard way to start a letter

But it would also be insincere

and if you’ve taught me anything it’s that I don’t want to become like you in any way

So let’s get to the matter at hand

shall we

I’ve thought about what I’d do if you or one of YOUR friends were to reach out to me

But I never truly expected that to happen

I guess that’s yet another thing I got wrong about you

Point for me I guess

You did reach out

Well

Sort of

It was on an app

I’ve been trying to put myself out there after two years of hiding myself from the world

from other people

I thought

maybe

if I tried

I’d find someone who wanted to spend time with me

who would find my Harry Potter and Star Wars obsession charming

who would be willing to go on hikes up the tallest mountains in the state with me

who would want to be my friend

Instead

I found you

after three long years

And we both know what happened last time

Or I thought we did

Am I the only one who remembers how things ended and the part you played in pushing me out from the one group that had once welcomed me and that I considered myself to be a part of

Truly

Did you forget

Did you forget

How I had been ignored

dismissed

laughed at

disparaged

gaslighted

lied to

banished

All for speaking my mind and standing up for everyone regardless of whether or not they were a part of your clique

For trying to ensure that the team continued on beyond our own selfish wants

I remember

I remember asking you for your guidance on how to navigate the dynamics of the group because I respected your judgement and thought that as someone adjacent to but outside of the drama and with a history of leadership that you would care about the wellbeing of everyone in the group and not just the ability of your few friends to rule with impunity and siphon off those they didn’t want to deal with

Another thing I got wrong

You told me you didn’t want to get involved

that you would remain neutral

If only you had told that to the other party as well

But why would you have done that when all you wanted was to surround yourself with those people and push away anyone they deemed unworthy of their attention

Surely

I thought

you of all people would have noticed how much it hurt me to be removed from the group after all the time I dedicated to it

Afterall

I had always believed you to be someone who cared more than the others

and knew what it was like to be alone

But you didn’t notice

You never looked at me

and I never looked at you

And even if you had looked at me you wouldn’t have seen anything past my eyes

you wouldn’t have seen anything

but maybe that’s less because of what I was hiding and more because of your own lack of empathy

How could you have forgotten all of this when you decided to reach out to me and stab at the bubble of calm that I had managed to build around my life these past three years

What was going through your mind

I really want to know

What was going through your mind

Did you think yourself free from any responsibility surrounding your own actions and the actions of those you actually supported

Perhaps the word bully seemed too childish for you to consider how well it suited you

Maybe my life isn’t important enough for you to be considerate of how you relate to it

Or maybe you just truly don’t want to understand how much you hurt me because the knowledge that you aren’t some noble sage would destroy you

Actually

I don’t want to know

Why should I put in the work to understand you when you never even tried to understand me

Nothing you say would make things better anyway

So why am I even bothering to tell you how I’m feeling anyway

You reaching out seems like a strange and misguided way to reconnect something that had never been connected in the first place

Let’s just move on

shall we

What I’m trying to say is this

You had your chance to reach out years ago and you didn’t take it

You could have made things better if you had shown a shred of decency and integrity and had spent the time helping everyone involved reach some sort of resolution that was respectful and just

You could have shown some amount of sensitivity

Fairness

But you didn’t

And I don’t want any of that now

Respectfully

Me