Rooftops

Rooftops
July 29th
1:47 AM

Now I bet you’re probably thinking,
“Oh this is gonna be some poem about how life is like a rooftop and blah blah blah just like any other modern day work about hope or life or something else easy to write about,”

Well,
This isn’t one of those poems.
This poem isn’t some metaphor for life, or some inspirational uplifting piece of artwork that people will clap and cheer for because in some weird way they find it’s so oddly relatable like those “Quotes for Teens” blogs that you see on tumblr.
This poem, is simply that;
a poem
It is a poem of 697 words, about someone I love dearly
Not some metaphoric iconic piece of remembrance.

I never got to sit on a roof,
Not yet at least.
My friend Lex and I’d always talk about going up to the 8th floor this summer,
But we never got the chance to,
They locked us in after Julie got snitched on.
Adderall.

Instead I’d sneak down the hall into her room at 1 AM in the morning, or she into mine and we’d talk about The House Party tour, or how messed up the world is
Because both subjects, are equally important

If she’s Alice, then I’m her Mary Elizabeth
Because she likes vampires and I like the Rocky Horror Picture Show
The only difference is, she doesn’t steal jeans from the mall, and I’m not a Buddhist

I remember how we’d all gather outside her door to hear her sing
Grace, Emerson, and I, our ears pressed up against the door,
Just to catch a few notes that floated out through the gap in between the carpet and the wood

I remember thinking in my head, “Thank god for Vic Fuentes, because he’s the one keeping her here,”
And as she sings out her favourite song Hold On Til May she makes me believe in each of those words all over again

Because as she sings out those words “Darling you’ll be okay”
I believe her and there’s this little hope that starts to bloom and entwine itself around my heart I can’t get those words out of my veins, just like I can’t get her voice out of my brain

I remember helping her tape up all of her posters, her door was covered in My Chemical Romance, her walls plastered with Pierce The Veil and her ceiling filled with Bring Me The Horizon

I remember her doing my eyeliner before we’d go to church, all smudgy;
3:00 PM every Saturday before group.

I remember laying on the ground every day after lunch under the sign up sheets for spin class
Listening to When You Can’t Sleep At Night by Of Mice and Men
And we’d all lie on the floor, like dizzy dancers after their last show

I remember the worst night
I was scared and she was scared
I remember Amanda was so sick that she cried and Grace hit her head
I remember her, Lex, screaming at the top of her lungs, “GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!” In this one girls face as another lay shaking on the floor

I remember how her room was,
It was always warm and smelled of mouthwash because she had a huge bottle of the minty blue liquid by her sink
I remember sitting on her bed, topped with polka-dotted sheets
I remember having our “Sharp Objects Party”, we pierced her ears, cut Robin’s hair, and slashed up our shirts; you know, the “usual teenage girl stuff”

I remember standing outside with her in the rain, our faces wet with water
And I yelled out “we are free!”
And in that moment we are not the numbers on the scale
We are not the pills they might feed to us
We are not two broken and shoved along souls just left of the path that life is supposed to lead

And I remember her asking me if I wanted to climb out the window and go jump off the roof with her,
I always said yes,
But we never did

I’m still waiting to jump off that roof

Polly Gallagher, 16, PVHS, United States