The Other Girl

I remember razor sharp
stares as my naive eyes
scanned the mass of people
looking for you.

The thick air swarming with secrets;
my secrets,
your secrets,
and our biggest mistake.

I remember the walk down the aisles of fire
engine red lockers and the sound of piercing
sirens in my head, warning
as my trembling feet inched closer
down the unsure path.

The cries sticking to the walls of my throat
and tears cascading down my rose painted cheeks as
they uttered the words I had waited so long to hear,
You had left her.
The words spilling off their lips,
an avalanche burying me on the spot.

I remember heaving myself against the cool metal behind me,
as my body slowly began declining to the floor.
I wanted those words to be true.
You had left her?

All of them walking past,
no glance in my mere direction.
I was a ghost,
a stranger
in a foreign land that everyone was too afraid
to look in the eye.
Afraid to ignite the ticking bomb
that would ruin their precious reputations.

I remember creeping through the swinging doors
onto the stiff cement floor.
The shrill chatter being silenced by my presence.
Everything was frozen, every pupil interlocked with mine.
Then a few faint whispers shattered my eardrums.

I was naked.
My heart of sin exposed
to the massive world of small town gossip.
A blood red letter slapped upon my chest
as depths of humiliation swarmed my soul,
because I was the other girl and you
had left her.


-Kathryn Rose Beck