The Indicator x The Student: “Broken Hinges”

I slammed the door in Hope’s face and told Her

I was better off alone, my pride too brazen to realize that good intentions

Matter more than harsh words spoken over late night calls.

I was too ashamed to apologize back then, too ashamed of the broken hinges I left.

All my bad decisions become immortalized in short lines of poetry;

I sometimes wonder if they resent their small relevance.

Armed with a fistful of secrets and youthful indiscretion,

My days are plagued by quiet remembrance, every morning a gasp for air.

Decaying love and childhood dreams, I wish to forget

All the things that once shimmered with golden naivety.

My sister says she and I are almost too much for a single person,

Too full of memory and magnitude, darkness and desire.

Swallow me in small doses and you can stomach me,

But gulp me down and I’ll splatter on the kitchen floor.

I was meant to be a ghost, not a soul, you see,

I was meant to haunt, not to love,

To hide in the tawny ground like old

Socks and love letters buried beneath my bed.

Broken hinges, broken hinges,

Why did no one tell me growing old is just

Leaving a trail of buried memories behind?