I wrote the poem “Scissors” when I was seventeen. I was young at heart and had just experienced my first crush that ended in teenage heartbreak. 

I had a HUGE crush on a boy in the youth group at my church. This was my first time ever feeling this way about a boy. He fascinated me. He drove a fun car. He played in a band. He was so cute with his long black hair sometimes styled into a mohawk. I was enamored by him. And he flirted with me constantly. We rode that line of “are they” or “aren’t they” back and forth. Every girl wanted to date him.

For some reason he became friends with me. He flirted with me. He told me his secrets. We began to pass notes back and forth during church services. I was supposed to be listening to the pastor, but I was sitting on a pew writing and passing notes and I kept every single one of them. I had an old shoe box that I hid in my closet that I would keep them in. Every now and then I would pull them out and re-read them.

Then SHE came along. She fascinated him. She loved boys in bands. This began my battle to keep his attention. The notes slowed down. The attention started to fade. Not only did it fade for me, but I had to watch them fall in love. I had to watch THEIR story unfold.

Then it was over. She had him and I had nothing. Not knowing how to deal with the anger and loss that I felt I grabbed the box of notes and a large pair of scissors. I sat on the floor of my bedroom and one by one I began to cut up our little love notes. One by one I watched them drop into the bottom of the trash can. Then I sat on the end of my bed and wrote “Scissors” and let myself feel the first pings of teenage heartbreak.

We were only a crush. We never were more than that. However, that crush felt larger to me than love. I chased it and found it only to end up losing it to my best friend.

Scissors

Square by square,

Word by word,

Piece by piece,

Emotion by emotion,

Angle by angle,

Snip by snip,

Line by line,

I cut away,

And try to piece back together my heart again.

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