Mayhem - Issue One - March 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
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Tim Shipton
Thirteen reasons this is not a love poem.
One.
Because there isn’t time to explain the way your voice made my ears ring the first time we
spoke.
Two.
Because it’s unfair to recall how I’d turn the other way with an Oh shit here she comes type skip
and an awkward smile when I discovered my escape route was a wall, and you laughed. My
cheeks burned.
Three.
Because there aren’t the words.
Four.
Because it would be a drop in the bucket of words I’d overuse like fate and destiny and every
after-school special, Saved by the Bell, Party of Five, that warned me that if this were love I’d
never get out alive.
Five.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
© Copyright remains with the individual author
Mayhem - Issue One - March 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
______________________________________________________________________________
Because I couldn’t do justice to the night we first explored each other’s lips. My fake I know
what I’m doing courage falling flat as we stumbled through shyness laced with heat and an
inability to stop.
Six.
Because I loved you.
Seven.
Because your Mother’s a bitch.
Eight.
Because I’m not a stoner I’m an artist. I’m a musician. I’m a Christian. I’m whatever they need
me to be for you. For us to be together.
Nine.
Because I wasn’t raised right. Because the only nuclear part of my family was the bomb that
blew my Father out of the house.
Ten.
Because I can taste the fear on your tongue. Because forbidden love isn’t a Titanic loyal tragedy.
We aren’t Romeo and Juliet. I drank the poison with time enough to see you drop the dagger and
run crying through the mausoleum doors.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
© Copyright remains with the individual author
Mayhem - Issue One - March 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
______________________________________________________________________________
Eleven.
Because you killed me.
Twelve.
Because somewhere in the smiles and depth of your proclamations I couldn’t quite make out the
fact that I was Forest Gump and you were my Jenny. That the whole movie I loved you while
you were content with shutting me out until cancer came to tear you away, but all you wanted
from me was to look after the kid…. Or something.
Thirteen.
This isn’t a love poem because there’s no such fucking thing.
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© Copyright remains with the individual author