Amanda Kinzer | + Follow Poet |
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Phone Booth

Oh, how I wish that phone booths did still exist, so that you could call me up and tell me again how much it’s me that you miss
Remember back the way you used to do? When you were scared of someone finding out about me and you
See you had a cell phone, but you couldn’t use that to call, because then questions would have arisen, and you couldn’t have that at all
But let’s change the subject let’s turn the magnifier on me, how dense was I that I couldn’t see what was transpiring right in front of me?

I guess I didn’t want to see it, so I put up with it, but looking back now it makes me feel so sick
To reflect and see that I was so desperate that I was settling for a half, a secret of a relationship and making decisions I could never take back
Letting you fill my heart with imitation love and used up lies to feed to my soul, believing that I was the greatest thing to come your way but that no one could ever know
Isn’t that why you could call my phone anytime day or night? But if I wanted to reach you I had to wait my turn for you to come up with a lie

For you to slip out of the kingdom that you had built with someone else, looking back I realize that I never valued myself
I deserved so much more than washed up excuses and promises that would never be, instead of looking out for you I should have worried about me
Because in the end and all along isn’t that what you chose to do? You didn’t want her to know but you did want your cake and to eat it too
And foolishly I fed you so much cake I turned you into a glutton but what did that make me? A girl that was too ashamed to look upon herself in the mirror because then I would have to see

I wasn’t the love of your life, I wasn’t all that you had ever looked for, I was just a wisp of fresh air when on her you had closed the door
You never meant the things you said as you whispered them to me, and how lovestruck dumb I must have looked back then to everyone but me
You were so self righteous but at the same time so deeply insecure, you played the game and flirted with the idea just enough so that the lines were blurred
That phone booth was your sanctuary, the one place where you could disguise, the true man that you really were, the one you so despised

The family man, the man that was bored with it all, believing that he wasn’t wanted because someone wasn’t always at your beck and call
But just like Clark Kent you could run in and change into your superhero attire, but that didn’t change the boy that dwelled within, the one you tried to hide
The one that wanted to be someone else so he promised a life to a girl that he knew, knowing that in the end these grandeur dreams would never come true
Everyday you would call me, everyday you would lie, to me and yourself just to build up your selfish pride

I wonder when others passed by and they saw you standing there with a grin the size of Texas on your face, those who knew you they had to know this was out of place
They had to know it wasn’t your wife on the other end, but no one ever called you out on it just as you they played pretend
You wanted me so much and just loved talking to me, and inside of that glass box it helped alter your reality
That phone booth it heard every whisper of my name from your lips, and every secret, every I love you, we ever shared, well now it no longer exists

See there are no more phone calls, there are no more lies, the line went dead years ago when you cut off all ties
That phone booth it was just an adventure, an escape, a wardrobe to another land, where you could call up the girl on the other end and she could stroke your ego and make you feel like more of a man
My question to you is was it worth it? Did it fulfill you in all the ways that you were without? Did it change anything at all because you’re still with her now?
So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that phone booths they symbolize something to me, being hung up on someone, destroyed, and left feeling alone and extinct.

Copyright © Amanda Kinzer | Year Posted 2023

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