i can
put you in my
back pocket now.
you’re so small;
you fold so easily.
i can forget you
in there and run you
through the wash and
watch your face fade
because
you don’t mean anything to me
anymore.
honestly,
it doesn’t matter
what time it is because
i’ll be thinking of you
anyway.
at some point
i stopped feeling, so
i lit myself on fire to get high
enough away from the ground
you’ve walked on.
i see your footprints
on the streets from way up here
as the city shrinks to ants.
i can still pick the top of your head
out from the crowd
from the clouds,
until i am on the moon:
i can’t see anywhere
your heart and mine were together.
your name on my tongue
(the only fruit i will not eat)
is overripe,
no longer sweet– past it’s prime
and overdue–
my heart no longer aches for you.
i assured myself his eyes
would always search for me
in the cracks between the pavement
and his ears would listen for me
when the wolves
howled at night.
but now i know
he’s filled those cracks
with softer skin and
while the wolves
howl, his ears are full
of her laughter,
and so
it doesn’t
even
matter.
i am nothing
to him anymore.
and so a piece of me dies.
i am a little less
of who i was before.
Before you pride yourself on being so hard
for me get over, remember that you broke the heart of a girl
who: falls in love with
sticks and leaves, and keeps her favorites
in the backseat of her car.
cries at crimson sunsets.
tiptoes around insects on the
sidewalk.
feels too much and not enough.
sees beauty in everyone
but herself.
does not understand the concept of loving
halfheartedly.
jumps in puddles and digs
her toes in the mud.
lies in the middle of the street at night
just to feel her heart race.
was never taught how to
put herself first.
You broke the heart of a girl with emotions like
rain drops in a torrent,
an ingenuous heart that still hasn’t learned
that hardening is much safer.
A girl reckless enough to tear open
the stitches, to risk bleeding out
to love you.
You sawed through the tissues
that never had time to congeal.
You’re hard to get over because
I opened my wounds for you, and
every time I pick my scabs, they take
a little longer to heal; they leave
a deeper scar.
I’d shoot you up,
swallow you whole with
a glass of orange juice
in the morning—
inhale you
during my lunch breaks.
I thought that I needed you.
Now my sheets are drenched
in all the words you’ve ever said and
my eyes roll back to replay
your smile until it distorts
into a sneer.
And I can smell your sweat.
I can taste your lips.
I can taste the milk going sour.
You are leaking out of
the bullet holes—out of
all of my pores—but
I know this
is part of getting clean.
I’m somewhere in between
fuck you and please don’t
leave me.
I washed the sheets four times (once
for every year you dreamt beside me)
before your smell
no longer lingered.
I deleted all of your
voice messages on my phone, but
they still replay
in my dreams some nights, and
I will always know your texts by heart.
I put all your clothes I gathered over the years, tangible
bits and pieces of you, into a garbage bag
and donated them, but
I still wake up on cold mornings wishing I had
that black jacket of yours.
I tore apart
every picture of us, and still
it took me too long to be able to
convince myself there was no missing
half in all those photos of just me.
I have flipped it so many times, and yet
I cannot get the imprint of
you out of my memory
foam mattress. The outline of your body
etched in chalk on a crime scene.
She’s closed herself off
behind her walls
because if she kicks them down, they’ll
fall for you
all
over
again;
and you will sit amid the rubble,
admiring the way
the sky greys just before the storm begins
in her heart.
I want what I cannot
put into words:
the dousing of the flame
which reminds me you are not mine.
The silencing of my thoughts
which day in, day out
turn, turn, turn to you.
To dam the flow of
you that seeps into my dreams.
To snuff your constant presence
in all of me.
They say
there are two ways out.
I must pick my poison.
Silenticel 