Hannah Marshall
i guess i’ll
admit that at first I only liked you
because you were
cute, and I have a complex for
desiring guys who would have been too cool to notice me in high school. so
even though I’m just a pick-me girl who
feels immensely insecure, there’s still something that makes me go oh
god when I think of you. this annoys me because when that guy
hurt me two months ago I vowed to never want anyone again, but either
I’m a flake with promises, or it’s
just because I think you’re ordinary in a special
kind of way. I
like it when you use exclamation marks on
messenger because
no-one of your social standing should be using punctuation in a text, and the cringe
of it looks like a vulnerability I remember from the day that you drove me through the
port hills, when we were
queuing at traffic lights and I looked at you and
realised that the fear I felt at
screwing things up was on your face too. and even though we only kissed
twice and the closest I’ve seen you to
undressed is when I found your water polo picture on the internet, those !!! you send give me
vivid pictures in my head and make me
want 3-letter things that end in
x, but for
you I wouldn’t stop there, and I’d walk the whole alphabet until I reached
z.
Hannah Marshall is a second-year student at the University of Otago. She completed a poetry course through Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters in 2021.