I’m Sick Of Being Your Placeholder Girl

“Adore” by Prince hums softly in the background.
I’m wearing that black dress you always say
you like,
I can predict your mouth before it ever opens.
Your fingers start working in overtime.
Honey, as if I don’t plan this out,
as if I leave shit up to chance.
I don’t have the privilege to be reckless.
I never know when she’ll change her mind.
I never know when she’ll call you back,
crack your spine to only bend her way.

I think the wolves must make fun of me.
The way I howl underneath a moon
that only shines for me
when she turns him down,
when I’m the next best thing.

Baby, I know I’m the alternate.
I know I’m the stand-in.

But right now, Prince is singing
and it’s hard to remember what my mother said.

I am sick of this back and forth,
I have bottled up my worth and stuffed it
somewhere deep
somewhere far
out of reach.
Call me a masochist,
the way I lick at your wounds
and bandage them clean
when you’re still hoping
she’ll love you back,
she’ll call your name.

You will never write a place for me,
it’s not something I can fool myself into thinking
not now.
But there is a stubbornness to my heart,
how I keep singing along
to every word Prince says.

“Until the end of time,
I’ll be there for you,
You own my heart and mind,
I truly adore you.”