Garbage — Summary

I said that I would leave just for a bit and I promised that I would be right back.

You acted as though the world had ended and you didn't want me to leave.

I liked it. It was cute.

But then, It got worse.

That one day, I opened my big mouth and told you that I'd be gone just for a little bit, destroyed you.

We fought every night over the stupidest littlest things. I blamed myself for each and every one of them. I still do. No matter if it was actually my fault or not. I always thought, and still do, think that it was and is completely my fault.

I was always the first to apologize. Because that was how guilty I felt. That was how much I cared. That was how much I loved you.

Each time I apologized over and over again, you never took my apologies. Instead, you read it and threw it away like it was garbage.

That "garbage" was my feelings and effort. Yet you just threw it away and turned all my hard work into crap. You turned the tables to where everything would lay in palm of your hands.

By doing that. Every night. Until this day. You turned me into garbage.

Then a day or two later, You would realize what you've done and apologized and asked me to forget.

I accepted your words. But I have never forgotten a single thing. I only said I did. But everything is embedded in my brain.

Our fights and conversations may be garbage to you. But to me, They're my everything.

I could never forget "garbage" like that.

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Priscilla's poem is about a relationship where one person's love is met with dismissal. It begins lightly: the speaker says they're leaving for a little while, and their partner's clingy reaction feels sweet. Soon it turns painful. The fights multiply, the speaker takes the blame for all of them, and each apology gets thrown away "like it was garbage."

The word "garbage" returns again and again, changing as it goes. First it describes the apologies, then the speaker's feelings and effort, and finally the speaker themselves. The ending flips it: the partner may see those fights as trash, but the speaker holds every one of them as "my everything."

The mood is raw, hurt, and quietly stubborn. The plain, repetitive language sounds like someone replaying the same memories at night. The speaker says they forgave, but admits they only pretended to, and that gives the poem its ache.

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