i. I have never bothered to learn the year you were born.
For no matter how old you get, you’ll always be a mere boy
in my eyes. You walked out of my life before I had
even started to grow. It’s been eighteen years now,
and if there is a promise that I manage to keep in this lifetime,
it’ll be that I will never give you the opportunity
to catch up on lost time.

ii. There is not a fragment of your memory
that doesn’t sting when you break your way into my mind.
Your mouth tasted like pity, your words like open wounds.
Our entire time together I was kept in the dark,
but when you left, I could not have been more exposed.
Everyone thinks they know the story:
boy meets girl, girl falls in love, boy leaves girl.
But we were not the textbook definition of a teenage relationship.
It’s been four years, and there are still nights that I wake up
in a sweat after a nightmare
about the day you left.

iii. The worst thing about you is that I trusted you.
I needed you. You knew my heart
inside and out; you could navigate your way
around blindfolded. You were nothing
but empty promises. Promises about the future —
any time that wasn’t Right Now.
You told me that you’d always be there
for me, but you fled as soon as things became real.
You always said I was too young, but what you really meant
is that you were too damn scared.

iiii. All you ever did was point out the mistakes I made.
The things I should have done. Then perhaps,
we would have worked out.
But I have gone on to watch you treat girls
like they are gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe,
and I thank myself for doing everything wrong,
because at least I did not go on
to live a life of always being stepped on
by a boy like you.

Indya Shaw resides in Melbourne, Australia, with her small family and two pets. As an only child, Indya spent the majority of her spare time reading novels and poetry, and she believes this influenced her writing style today. She hopes to publish a book of her poetry in the future. Her work can be found on her blog throughouthenight.tumblr.com.