I wish I could just put my life on hold
run to an unfamiliar place. Alone. Alone
I'd listen to the ocean kissing the coast
saltwater and alcohol, I'll drown your ghost
'til I'm barely alive, and I'm soaked to the bone
these times are the times that I miss you the most.

I pack up the ring from you 
Another broken promise
Like a severed circle you
Once placed upon my finger
A faux commitment 
One of many you’d make 
This with a metal
Many with your mouth
Some with your body 
Most with your words
Your comfort and unshakable
(Or so I thought) 
Love for me, endless 
I wish I could break this ring
Like you broke my heart 
Sell my sorrows 
Like you sold my gifts 
Nothing left of me in you
Everything of you left in me 
I’ll never have a love like you again
Friends say that’s a good thing
But I know better 
My heart is not a circle 
And it can’t be welded
Mended 
Fixed 
By anyone but you.

It's been a long night and a long day and a long week and a long month. It's been a long year. The most painful and most magical of my life so far. Most of the time I've been angry or indignant, as is well deserved for the way you treated me. But today, I miss you. I miss your scent and the shape of your body and the warm brown gaze of your eyes in mine. I'm thinking of when we first met. How you taught me that sometimes no matter how much you love and want someone, you can still hold back and wait for them to be ready to accept it. How you taught me that it was possible to give and receive love, to vulnerably offer myself to someone and not be pushed away or used or rejected or hurt. How you made me feel worth something. I thought losing you would negate all the good things.  I thought losing you would tear away my sense of worth. And it's true it has been difficult. It's been the most difficult thing I have ever had to experience. It has challenged my sense of self-worth, and made the good things painful to recall. But you can't undo four years in a month; you can't undo the pain caused, and likewise I can't undo the gifts you gave me.

I've lain in bed all day, slain by sleep. Exhausted and happy and sad. Yesterday drained me. It was the best and worst day. Walking the same halls I used to walk with you, with only your ghost, a broken heart and an empty hand. Meeting my “favorite” musician without my real favorite musician, you, by my side. You should have been there. But you weren't. Thoughts of you were the only thing keeping me awake as I drove home at 4am. Funny how the same force that made me want to take my own life one short month ago was saving me by keeping the car from going off the road. And when I finally fell into bed your face invaded every dream.

I spent all morning unready to wake up. I passed the day tossing and turning, wrestling against memories of you where I used to wrestle for sleep, pressed against your body. And when I finally couldn't sleep anymore, I lay on my pile of unfolded laundry in the living room, fighting the desperate need for a change of pace, a breath of fresh air. But I couldn't avoid looking out the window and seeing pink streaked across the darkening sky, color stains shaped like the old scars I carved into my wrists long before I met you. It is the last night of September. I followed the clouds out the door and into my car.

Before I knew it I was back in the park where it all ended. Walking with the soles of my feet bared, the very path I walked with my soul and heart bared one month ago, stopping behind the bush where you refused to meet my gaze, tearing out grass as I bled saltwater from my body, begging you for answers. I sat where you sat then. I tried to feel what you might have felt. I watched the sun set in the sky, a beautiful and colorful ending to the most painful month of my life, and I thought of the sun setting, beautiful and colorful, on the pain we caused each other.

Now I'm the one tearing the grass from the ground, my heart straining against meeting your memories. My eyes are dry, my lips mumble the lyrics to a La Dispute song as it resonates through the empty field out of the speakers in my phone, and I whisper but I want to scream.

I want to be tugging your hair in passion, not the grass in pain. I want to be whispering in your ear, not the empty air; I want to know if you've been here since that day. My heart says no. I want to know if you've missed me for one second or if you have sunk fully beneath the ripples of lies and fake friendships, never to return. And every day until now I've hoped you'll never return. But now I do. I do, I do, I do. I want you to return. Not to me but to a place of peace and hope. I see the darkness in your eyes. You can't hide from me. No Instagram filter covers the pain and sadness I see etched in the lines of your face. They are a truth not even you could conceal from me. Your pain is far more familiar to me even than my own.

I'm covered in bug bites. The sky is completely black. Normally I'd be terrified and frustrated and running back to my car. But I sit. I sit. I talk to you like you're dead. Because the you I knew is never coming back. And I can almost taste you, I can almost feel you, I can almost reach you. But you're a little too distant. A little beyond my grasp. I'm not your savior anymore. And you're not my hero.

I walk with bare feet on the wet grass, slowly back to my car. The story isn't over. But this chapter is.

You were hot

And smooth

And quick

You made my head float

You made me forget.

Being with you was natural

Vulnerable

Painful

Pleasurable

Left me breathless

Left me wanting more

Fast and furious

Impossible to ignore

Erasing him from my body

And filling those spaces with you

Undemanding

Passionate

Understanding

It won’t last

But you’re familiar

And comforting

Like last year’s sweaters

Or the taste of bad coffee on a cold morning

And I need you for now

And you need me too

I just hope it doesn’t end

In disaster

Or heartbreak

Or bitterness

Like the grounds at the bottom

Of that cold morning coffee

Pain is inevitable

Love is a choice

But sometimes last year’s sweater

Just doesn’t fit perfectly

And it’s just good enough

To keep out the cold

I hope you understand that

(I’m afraid that you don’t)

The tears just don't stop. I feel like I've been crying for days. My eyes are starting to burn. I can't breathe from all the sobbing. My voice is gone. Screamed out. Nobody can reach me now. I've flooded my surroundings with the pain of your name and the questions you left unanswered. And now I'm an island. Incapable of being reached unless someone should swim to shore. But none will dare to cross that treacherous path. No one will find me out here. 

Lying in this cold air

September

came so quickly

and soon I’ll be a year older

remember

how you promised me

you’d take me to that concert?

you said

“I won’t mess up your birthday
this year”

but surprise, surprise
you’re not here

Just my naked body

alone

between these cold sheets

she’s in between yours

sewn

into the seams of your

broken, empty heart

single

that’s what you said you wanted

your lies

are an elaborate

work of art

But somehow, I’m not

missing

your touch on my skin

your morning

kisses

I stretch and I breathe

and I’m finding my voice

I thought I had lost it

but it turns out

it was just being drowned

by the sound of your rambling

endless noise 

4am questions

It was 4am today when I woke up. A little foggy in my head, but crystal clear were my feelings. The alcohol had lulled me to sleep but not long enough. In that dazed, barely awake state is when my feelings for you become far too clear. I am most vulnerable in those moments, when I don’t have you to turn to anymore with my aching backs and heartbreaking dreams that I begin to question everything. Like did I do something to deserve this? Do I bring loneliness on myself? Is it impossible to love me?

Everything about the situation is unfair. It is unfair that you left a bullet hole right through my heart and left me to bleed out; while you seem to have nothing but a finger prick from me that you were instantly able to place a band aid on. And it doesn’t make sense really. If I gave you so much more than you gave to me, shouldn’t it be that when you lose it, you are missing more than I am?

But maybe that’s the point. I lodged my love into you like a bee stings its victims. I gave you more than you wanted, and when you left, you ripped out my insides and left me to die. And maybe my damaged self continued to push my love into you even after you were gone. But you didn’t want it, because real love hurts. So you removed it and covered it up and tried to forget.

But unlike the bee I can choose to rise again. I can put myself back together and take back what I gave to you. And I can be more whole and alive than you ever will be, because my love is powerful. And the answer to the 4am questions I ask myself is a solid no. I am worthy of everything good in this life. It is you who do not recognize, do not deserve my love. Even if I hurt you, I never would have left you. And it doesn’t matter if you never see it.  Because I’m starting to.

I’m taking back myself.