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Corinne O’Connor

When you burst into ashes in front of my eyes, I convinced myself it looked like confetti. Something fun to play with, a celebration
that no one else joined in on.

I’ll never get over
the way you cared about me
and enveloped me like I was worth protecting,
the way you’d let me snot all over your new sweater because solace was found in your arms.

Sometimes I look at my piggy bank
and think we’re still scraping pennies
to buy an RV and go to Disney,
sleeping on a mattress in the back,
draped over one another in clean cotton sheets.
Now you have a car that barely fits two people
and I’ve saved enough money to make the trip twice over.

I saw you at Burger King the other day and my hands shook so violently
that I walked straight out the glass doors, back to the safety of the parking lot.

I can forgive you for the poisoned words
but not for being the person that knew me best. I wrote a thousand love poems for you

and you wrote me paragraphs about how much you hated them. I’ve never owned a notebook that’s clean of you,
and I doubt I ever will.
I’d stitch us back together for nights on end,

sticking my fingers on the sharp ends of sorries,
always smoothing over and apologizing for fights you picked. You’d rip the stitches away
and tell me I’d done a terrible job,
show it to your friends and they’d laugh at my ugly work. Somehow, I loved you anyway.

I could forgive all the ways
you'd twist my brain until it collapsed in on itself
because I knew, once, what your love felt like.
I knew all the candies you couldn’t eat
and the honeyed scent of your house
and the exact order of stores you’d visit on a trip to the mall. I lay in wait for that love to return from war,
waving handkerchiefs on top of a tower.

Your ashes were a cause to celebrate;
I’d finally slayed the beast that sat on my chest,
but it was more like I’d fallen on my own sword in the process. If you spoke to me again, I’d kiss your temple
and all my progress would spill over, wetting the floor.
My hands shook in Burger King
because they craved to reach across the counter;
I’m losing how our skin felt,
and I’m not ready to forget the warmth it gave me.
I wrote a thousand love poems for you when we cared,

and I’m writing another one right now for you when we despise each other.

I forgave you when you screamed at me and called me a bitch,
every time you held my secrets in a jar and threatened to shatter the glass when I didn’t do what you wanted.
Forgave you when you isolated me from my closest friends,
even when you told everyone I ruined your life.
Were all those times we picked out books for each other
that horrible to you?

It’s hard for me to say I hate you,
but I choke it out every time
because that’s the digestible version of the story,
the happy ending, well-adjusted thing to do.
I untack from the wall the note you gave me, the note that burst with pride after my first open mic, and hide it under my bed.
I can’t forgive the knowledge of
hugging under cherry blossom trees
and jumping into the pool fully clothed
and staying still for you putting on my lipstick
because it means despite the nasty cuts you left,
somehow, I still love you.
And I can’t forgive myself for that
when I crave nothing more than to punch you
and for you to wrap me in your arms one last time. 

Corinne O’Connor (‘25) is a Genetics and Counseling Psychology Major from Bay Shore, NY. Poetry and writing have always been a part of her life, and she is happy to be a part of this year’s volume of Pitch!