Habit to Habitat
by Hailey Black
He said you were a different person
Then the one he used to know
When the love was easy
Before you started disappearing into the shadows Of dive-bar bathrooms
Where you believed your secrets
Wouldn't be revealed within your tiny, dark pupils
Before your friends started questioning the honesty of your voice Science tells me that addiction is not inherited
But I fear for the future
We are so brief
A dandelion waiting for a breeze
A cruel reality
You were just a red, leather jacket at the top of the stairs
The girl crying in the bathroom stall next to mine
Shoelaces undone Grey and soggy
I wanted to say
I forgive you
I forgive you
Even if you don’t forgive yourself You don’t belong here
Let me take you home
Then the one he used to know
When the love was easy
Before you started disappearing into the shadows Of dive-bar bathrooms
Where you believed your secrets
Wouldn't be revealed within your tiny, dark pupils
Before your friends started questioning the honesty of your voice Science tells me that addiction is not inherited
But I fear for the future
We are so brief
A dandelion waiting for a breeze
A cruel reality
You were just a red, leather jacket at the top of the stairs
The girl crying in the bathroom stall next to mine
Shoelaces undone Grey and soggy
I wanted to say
I forgive you
I forgive you
Even if you don’t forgive yourself You don’t belong here
Let me take you home
Hailey Black is an emerging writer from a small, steel-town along the Ohio River. She grew up in a home built behind a train track whose windows of her childhood bedroom would rattle when the trains would pass. She now lives along the south-east coast and finds solace in the vastness of the ocean.