crumpledupletter

[crumpledupletter]

I wish you knew the agonizing pain I was in those first few weeks without you. Something had been ripped from me. You were an extension of me. Like a limb. A vital organ required to survive. A major sustenance to live. And in a blink of an eye, you left. And you moved on.

I lay on the floor, holding myself like a baby, begging to be swallowed whole, gasping for air, begging for oxygen to reach my lungs, hoping and praying you wouldn’t go.

[crumpledupletter]

I’ve got a hundred thrown out speeches I almost said to you. And I sit here, with a heart broken, wondering if you would have played for keeps the next time. If you enjoyed breaking me, if I was your favorite toy, and that’s why you put me back on the shelf.

Maybe I knew too much, maybe you didn’t like forever with me and you smashed it up. I always thought, “once I fix me, he’s gonna miss me.” I did fix me. You were my best friend. And that was the worst part. You stole my tortured heart and left all these broken parts then dared to say it was all wrong. That it was all for nothing. And I that made me want to die.

I wish you knew that I’ve sat here grieving for the living. I’ve tried hard to rip up the roots of your ivy, my house of stone covered in you. My pain fits in the palm of your now cold hands. I always thought you’d burn the house to the ground, coming to sweep me up and run with you. I wish you’d see the fire, the goddamn blaze in the dark, that you started. It’s a war, the fight of my life, and you started it.

Maybe the skeletons in our closets plotted hard to fuck this up. Maybe you swindled me into believing I was the one. Now you hang from my lips like the Gardens of Babylon. You taught me that forever is the sweetest con. That love with you came with a price.

I paid a high one. With blood and tears. Split our hands open, bound ourselves to each other. Your blood in me, crimson promises broken by you. I hope you’re haunted by the look in my eyes, eyes that would have loved you for a lifetime. All these lessons now weapons you use to point out my deepest hurt.

Maybe you thought you were so much older and wiser while I waited by the door like a kid waiting for you to come in thru the door. If it’s all in my head I wish you’d tell me I got it all wrong. My love should have been celebrated it but now I’ve watched you tolerate me. Used my best colors for your portrait and let other girls view my masterpiece. Tell me, tell me where is the man who threw blankets over my barbed wire? I made you my temple. My sky. Now I sit here, begging for footnotes in the story of your life, drawing hearts in the byline. Now I see how I take up too much space and time in your life. You stabbed me with the dagger and then removed it. Watch me bleed out, and leave us in ruins.

I hope that old body ache you feel in your bones is me tethered deep in your soul. My initials written in your veins, covered but not gone. That will always be me. All these years, all these tears, I gave it my all and you wondered why I left? My past is frozen behind glass and I got me. There were so many breaks in my soul. Over and over I tried to make it all stop. But giving up was the strong thing. Running was the brave thing. Walking out was the thing that found me the right thing. It was the only way I’d make it to 30. And make it, I did. I wish you knew in your soul that you just had to wait for me. You just had to let me fall back in love with myself. That I just needed to learn to heal that little girl inside me. That the sweet girl I was needed to mend her broken heart. That the years of insults and tarnished armor acquired like bruises, the violence against me made me gentle. That it made me love that much harder. That it made me a strong but loving mother. That it made me the favorite teacher at school. That it made me the quiet but direct woman I am today. That in all my boldness I never stopped being kind. That I’d give anything to be covered in you.

This is the war. The goddamn fight of my life. But you started it.

[crumpledupletter]

October 17, 2017

Just breathe, just relax, I tell myself it’ll be okay. It’s been a few days since we’ve talked in so long. Feels like the first time ever hanging out with you. I kind of have my money on things going badly, seems like history always has things ending sadly. Still I hope the fire is still there.

All I know is this is going to break my heart or bring it back to life but maybe he knows that. Maybe he doesn’t care. He said he didn’t want to really talk to me. That he has friends to text with. What would be the point he said; I guess I thought he’d hear my voice and it would all come back.

Just one time.

I was thinking just one time the stars would align. I was thinking just one time the moment would be right. I thought maybe he’d want to call me “mine.”

[crumpledupletter]

Too high a horse for a simple girl to rise above it. They slammed the door on my whole world, the one thing I wanted. I screamed to everyone how much I loved you, that I’m having our baby just to see their faces. I wish you’d floored it to the fences, I would have never come to my senses. You were what I wanted.

Being the eldest daughter, all my plans were laid. Growing up precocious sometimes means not growing up at all. You had the eyes I wanted to look into for the rest of my life. But everyone convened and said you “he needs to stay away from her.” The saboteurs protested too much. Lord knows the words you never heard. The ones telling you that it was never my choice. Never what I wanted. Not like this. I told them all I knew it was crazy. I told them I’d rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning. It was my name alone to disgrace. I didn’t cater to vipers dressed in empaths clothing.

God save the most judgmental creeps who said they wanted what was best for me. They sat there and performed sanctimonious soliloquies that I didn’t want to hear. They thought it could change the beat of my heart when you touched me and counteract our chemistry and undo our destiny. I told them to stop praying for me.

I was your wild joy. They were white noise. You were always my choice. Now I sit here bestowing my fakest smiles trying to make it thru the day without the you I knew. This should have brought us closes. Come back when the heat died down. But fuck them all, they won. You agree with them now.

Time. Doesn’t it give you some perspective? You were my chaos and revelry and I was your wild joy, your wild girl. I should have had your baby. But I’m not. And we could have seen all their faces.

I want to scream, “but I love him!”

When all is said and done I was the ONE and we shouldn’t need to force and settle for for Plan As and Plan Bs

[crumpledupletter]

You say I have to understand but you know I won’t. I thought the cure would come in time but now I fear it won’t. Remember when we’d walk into your room and talk about the light. We loved it so much. Now I sit in the dark and wonder if it’s time.

Were you just trying to keep me locked away in shadows? I don’t even know anymore. I don’t know what to believe anymore. Am I supposed to walk away from my soulmate. The person that was supposed to grow old with me? Am I supposed to go away quietly?

Do I throw out everything we built or keep it? I’m getting tired even for a phoenix. Always rising from the ashes. Mending all her gashes. I think you just dealt the final blow. You’re losing me, I can’t find a like and my heart won’t start anymore. You’re losing me and you so easily tell me it’s fine.

There are storms in my eyes. How can you say that you loved someone you can’t even tell is now dying? I sent you so many signals. My face was gray but you wouldn’t admit that I was sick. I know now my pain is such an imposition. So quick to cast me aside. Tell me to have a good day, anything to cease any sort of back and forth. You don’t care what I have to say. You’re losing me and I can no longer find a pulse. My heart won’t start anymore.

My heart won’t start anymore. My heart won’t start anymore. My heart can’t start anymore. Why won’t you start my heart anymore?

How long do I wait for you to bring me back to life? I gave you all my best me’s. My endless empathy. And all I’ve done is bleed trying to be the bravest soldier. Here I am fighting in your army. In your frontline and you ignore me. I wish you still believed I was the best thing in all your parties.

I wouldn’t marry me either. A pathological people pleaser who only wanted you to see her. I’m fading thinking “do something babe, say something,” “lose something babe, risk something.” Choose something babe I got nothing to believe, unless you’re choosing me. But you’re losing me. Stop. Please. You’re losing me. I can’t find a pulse. My heart won’t start anymore.

[crumpledupletter]

Do we now call this an illicit affair?

Have you reduced what started in beautiful rooms to meetings when you’re off the clock?

Did you tell your friends about all the lies?

Do you remember the road less travelled by?

That’s the thing about illicit affairs, it’s born from just one single glance.

And now it dies and dies a million little times.

You don’t want to leave a trace behind.

Like you don’t want me to exist.

Was I only a mercurial high?

Was I the drug that only work the first few hundred times?

Our clandestine meetings showed their truth every single time.

When you close your eyes one last time I was supposed to be there.

Don’t ever call me baby again.

Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me.

You showed me colors you know I can’t see with anyone else.

Don’t call me baby.

Look at this idiotic fool that you made

You taught me a secret language I can’t speak with anyone else.

You know damn well for you I would ruin myself, a million little times.

[crumpledupletter]

January 27, 2024

We gather here. Lined up. Weeping in a sunlit room. Should we conduct this post-mortem? If I’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too. Tell me, babe, on my worst day, did I deserve this hell you gave me. I loved you, I swear I loved you til my dying day. Now you ask me to go, but I don’t have it in myself to go with grace. Now you want to be the hero saving face, telling me it was all wrong. Changing your mind, writing new stories in old pages of my book. If I’m now dead to you, why were you always at the wake wishing I stayed, telling me that for the rest of your life you’d be fighting yourself to resist me.

Now you’ve gathered stones, some to throw at me, and others to give rings, to hand that should have been me. You still wear the same jewels that I gave you as you bury me. It’s not in me, I don’t have it in me to go with grace. When I used to fight you used to tell me I was so brave.

I can go anywhere I want just not home. You can aim for my heart or go for blood but you will miss me in your bones. I promise you. I still talk you when I’m screaming at the sky and when you can’t sleep at night, what you hear will be my stolen lullabies.

I don’t have it in myself to go with grace. The battleships you and I got on will sink beneath these waves. You think that you have to kill me but I hope you know it’ll kill you just the same. You sit here and toss out blame, curse my name, crossing out the good years. I hope you see how my tears will turn into your tears.

[crumpledupletter]

Decemberr 11, 2011

I guess I’m still blocked. Do I move on? I’ve stopped checking my email waiting for a confession of love from you. You moved on so fast. Did all your friends like Jen or whatever her name is? The voices tell me I need to learn my lesson, that I am a foolish one.

I’m learning the hard way that you didn’t love me. I’ve been screaming into the silence that the past five, six years were a lie. I’m sick. I thought maybe you’d realize this was all my pain coming out. But here I am, thinking you’re the one, but you so easily walked out. Maybe one day my confession of love will come and they’ll be glad you didn’t come for me.

I realize now maybe this is your ego swinging. I thought we’d always be timeless, a child made of you and me, safe in me. I want to tell you something. Maybe this means nothing. Maybe you are so happy it all played out like this. Maybe you’re happy you got but I believe we were supposed to find this, in a different life you were supposed to be mine. You and I were meant to be timeless.

I hope one day, when you hear Taylor Swift, or you see Lord of the Rings on tv, or you see brown eyes they remind you of me. Or maybe you’ll hear someone speak French and you’ll remember I speak it too. Or maybe someone will have long black hair, and for a second you’ll think it’s me. Maybe you’ll go to the beach and remember the first time you realized it was me.

Even when my hear is turning gray, even when the crinkles in your eyes form, even when the years wear you down, I hope you know I’ll always think our love is timeless and no one and nothing will ever touch it.

You drew stars around my scars and now I’m bleeding.

[crumpledupletter]

October 27th, 2011

I guess you really did it this time. Left me and yourself in your warpath. I’ve lost my balance on this tightrope and my mind trying to get it back. Can we go back to a year ago? When you believed in me and I believed in you. I’m sitting here in absolute darkness, alone, wondering why I didn’t die two weeks ago. How could anyone think of me as innocent?

I did some things I can’t speak of. I wonder if you’d even care. Heard you replaced me, Jen is her name right? So heartbroken you searched for me in someone else’s arms? I don’t even recognize myself, I’m mourning someone still alive, you. The body isn’t cold and you seek the heat of someone else. I’m confused, you risk your job, your life, everything, to get rid of me? You block me. Consider me dead. Throw me away. Manny, every single night I live it all again. I’m here shattered on the floor now, if only you had seen me, maybe you’d come running.

I used to think you would save me. And now I see it got old. I saw it at the hospital last year, when your annoyance with me superseded your concern. It’s like you no longer considered me innocent. I wish you’d seen me September 26th. I wish you’d answered the phone, when I had the bottle of pills in my hand and took them. They said I was close. I saw something. I think a part of me did die. I heard this voice, the one of a little girl. She called my name. She called it, a light in total darkness. Every night since I’ve thought maybe it was our daughter, or maybe it was little me. Why won’t you pick up? This hurts so much. You’re parading your newfound freedom and I am destroyed on this floor, picking up the pieces of my heart, wishing the pills had worked.

Would you have come to my funeral? Or are you that angry that I don’t know what to do right now? That this trauma has me so fucked up I can’t even think straight.

I never thought we’d have a last kiss. I never imagined it would end like this. I wish you could see the pain I’m in. It is tearing me apart. Why did you tell me you loved me and then go away? I don’t know how to be without you. You were supposed to stay, stay with me in this life. That July 27th, I said you were mine and I was yours. Your name will forever be the name on my lips.

I remember everything about you, the way your hand held mine. The way your eyes glistened when I looked into yours. How you’d kiss me in the middle of saying something, how you thought I was the most beautiful person in any room. The way you thought I was the funniest girl. How can that not be true anymore?

Am I supposed to watch your life in pictures the way you watched me sleep? Am I supposed to be okay with you forgetting me the way I felt you breathe? Would you keep up with anyone just to ask them how I am? How can you abandon me? I’ll never trust anyone again. Ever. I hope one day, something reminds you, you wish you had stayed. I planned on a change in weather and time but never on you changing your mind. I’ll sit here with your sweater, crying on the floor, and scream that I’ll never learn to live without you.

This is wrong. You were supposed to be with me until the end of our days.

I never knew you’d give me a last kiss.

[crumpledupletter]

June 3, 2015

I miss him. Is that wrong? Maybe, but I do. No one knew me like he did. I wonder if he knows I’m 22. I wish he’d call. Tell me he’s been thinking of me. I wish he’d remember it was my birthday. He moved on so quickly. I guess I was but a blip in his galaxy.

I wonder if he drives his car and wonders if I’ve gotten my driver’s license, like we’d always talked about. I failed like two times. How embarrassing! I wonder if that would make him laugh. He always thought I was the funniest person ever. Or maybe it was all sympathy laughs. It was never like that with us though. We were honest. I’d come undone with him and let him in. And he did the same. There was nothing we could hide. Well there was nothing I could hide. It was like it was in my DNA to tell him everything.

I wonder if he ever wishes he’d fought a little harder. Or given me the time to grow and figure myself out. I bet he is none the wiser about that day in September. That I almost died. That I came close. That the light was calling my name. That I almost went. He probably doesn’t or wouldn’t care. He ignores all my emails. Maybe I should stop trying.

He’s in my DNA. His blood is inside me and I wish he knew how much I need him. I need him and I need him to hold me and to know me again.

Anyway. Guess it doesn’t matter.

[crumpledupletter]

January 13, 2007

For the first time today I didn’t wake up so sad. I mean I am sad. Really sad. Or maybe I’m tired. Or angry. Or just feel like everyone is pushing me to the edge. October felt like my world was going to fall apart. I guess for a while it did. Those almost three weeks in the hospital were almost like a dream. I came in scared out of my mind. I mean wouldn’t anyone be scared of a fucking psychiatric hospital? I came out more confident. I know people were mad at me afterwards. I know he said I seemed worst but I think they all got it wrong. I just became bolder, colder, in a flash more confident. Not because I think I’m better, but in spite of all of this I’m still alive. I’m still here. It didn’t kill me. It didn’t break me.

Like when people say love can save you, that’s what I feel. Like him coming to see me every day saved me. Gives me purpose and reason to wait for the phone. Waiting for him to be on the other line and hear my stories and my thoughts and all my annoying ramblings. He listens to me. He smiles at me. He doesn’t treat me like some dirty person who was raped and now tainted. He looks at me like he wants me to live. Maybe he seldom thinks of me. I’m sure he doesn’t.

I feel like I know him. No. I do know him. We talk almost everyday on the phone. I can’t imagine my life without him. He’s like oxygen. An essential part of my being. Sometimes I feel like I’ve know him all my life. Like this was supposed to happen. I was supposed to know him. He was meant to be in my life. It’s kind of pretty to think there’s some invisible string tying him to me. I almost tell myself that without this past summer I wouldn’t have him. Maybe that’s the bright star in this surrounding darkness.

I hope he never leaves me. He promised me he won’t. He says he’s my guardian angel. He played “Your Guardian Angel” for me. Said he’ll always be that. I believe him. It’s like this mystical turn, life cut me open and here he is, healing me whole. Out of all the run-ins we could have had, he chose that day, he has wrapped all my past mistakes in barbed-wire, he’s placed chains around my demons and all that’s left is the single thread of gold tying me to him.

My god the journey has been hell but, he’s my bit of heaven. I think I’ll be okay. I hope I am.

He showed me another song a couple of days ago. I feel like he showed me a language I can’t speak with anyone else. Only he and I know the words. But he played this song. I’d never heard it before. Or I might have but didn’t know the name. Iris by The Goo Goo Dolls. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard such a beautiful song. I cried. I know the whole class is sick of me crying but I can’t help the tears that keep coming. It’s like he wrote the song for me. “You bleed just to know you’re alive.” For all these months, that’s all I’ve wanted. To be alive. To feel like I can live. I’ve chipped away at the hurt and the anger and the fear and slowly, so slowly I see myself living again. Quietly. It’s still painful. I close my eyes and feel broken. I don’t want the world to see me. I don’t know that they’d. Understand. But he would. He does.

He says I’m the moon, and in total darkness he thinks of me. Sometimes I think I’ll lose him. Like when he gets mad at me for cutting myself. I’m trying. I’m trying not to do that. I think he doesn’t like that I fight back, but I can’t help myself. I wish he wouldn’t stay mad at me when I do this. I don’t know how else to survive right now. I wish I could say everything I feel to his face. No one has come close to him but I don’t think words exist for what is inside my heart. When we hang up, and it’s time to go to sleep, I think of that night, and how I wish I’d known him then, maybe he would have saved me. Or maybe he would have told me not to go.

I wish I was normal. I wish I was deserving of love. I wish everyone saw that inside of this anger is someone who just wants to be loved. Someone who cries. Someone who cries about everything. How I want to so badly live. How everyone thinks this is some small that thing that happened but my world ended when it happened to me.

I hope he never lets me go. I hope he doesn’t get tired of me. I hope he knows I need him. I hope he knows that if he ever leaves my life, everything with crumble. How do I ask someone who is obviously excited that I leave to Marshall that I don’t want him to let me go. That I’m falling apart but come together when he listens. He’s the only one who believes me. He’s the only one I’d tear my walls down for. He says he’ll always stay. He says he can feel the storm inside me. And he stays.

I wonder if he’ll ever be proud of me? I wonder if he’d go to my funeral? Maybe he he’ll feel free of me. He says to take what I need from him but I wish he knew I could sit silently with him and I’d feel indebted for the rest of my life. I wonder if I could run to him? Would he hold me? Well I’m getting sleepy and I’m hoping to go to school to see C track with him. It’s so weird to be on vacation. I miss him a lot. :(

Brianda

[crumpledupletter]

Manny,

Hey. I knew one day we’d run into each other. Maybe not like this run-in No. A different kind. A quiet one. I always picture it at The Strand. Or maybe we’d both be walking to the same spot and we’d see each other. Eye to eye we’d meet again. I always wondered what you would notice first. My hair? My eyes? My voice? Maybe you’d tell yourself something is different. Maybe I grew into my looks. You’d think that I am a full grown woman. It’s been so long maybe you’d stare, and you’d remember everything. Or nothing at all. I used to be so sure. I used to know that you’d know immediately that you’ve missed me. That I should be standing next to you. That you still love me. You never stopped. That seeing me wouldn’t be this monumental moment because you’d known all along this was how we’d find our way back. We’d see each other and maybe hug? Or maybe laugh? Do you remember my laugh? I’m sure you no longer do. All by choice. Or maybe you’d smell my perfume? You’d catch a hint of me and it would all rush back.

Sometimes in the summer I still wear the same one I wore with you. Maybe you’d ask me how I’ve been. And I’d say I’m fine. Exchange niceties and tell you so little but inside scream out all the things that have happened. Tell you that I have years of experience to share. That I want to tell you about my best friend, and Taylor Swift, and work, and my kids, and my dogs, and my students. I’d want to tell you about how much I’ve healed. I’d tell you that all the violence made me gentler but, that I’m still feisty. I’m still there. It’s still me. You don’t know how much I feel I love you still, and I’d ask why don’t you? It feels like we are on borrowed time. I’m doing everything to remove the roots you put in my dreamland, but I am covered in you. I’m trying to run away from the blaze you started.

All the years I’ve given to you, all the times I showed you all my hiding spots, I can’t even begin to live without you. I wish you’d remember the happiness because of me. I wish you’d look into the eyes that have loved you for a lifetime. You tell me we can’t relate anymore, then who am I related to?

How can our story go back so many years and end like this? Why didn’t you wait? Why didn’t you hold on and wait for me to be ready? Why has it always been on your time? How can you so quickly dismiss us, have the audacity to tell me you and I were wrong when there are no two other people who should have grown old together than me and you. I refuse to believe it and yet here I am in tears that I can’t fight anymore, I have to fight the truth in your lies. I don’t understand how you can diminish the sacrifices we made for each other all in the name of settling because I had a breakdown two years ago. I don’t know how much more I could have proven to you that my heart was yours.

How can you not remember that young little girl? The one that stood eye level to your chin and surrendered herself. The one that saved herself and chose you to be standing with? All the fight and the violence I withstood in order to be with you? And now you say it’s wrong? I tell myself you’re just saying this because you want to write new stories in old pages but how can I ever forgive you? I gave everything, every single fiber of my being, until I was in debt with myself to you. I just needed time. Time to heal. Time to survive. Time to become older and live. Live a life filled with laughter and joy and innocence, something that you know all too well was stripped from me day after day.

How can you minimize us? How can you forget the day we both slashed our hands and our blood entered each other’s stream, our bond forever laced, tethered thru cells that only death could end? How can you forget the day you got down on one knee and told me I was it, this was it, there would be no before and after, that even if I was gone, it would always and only ever be me? I tell myself it’s a lie, that you must have lied because I cannot imagine a crueler world where you mean that and so easily changed your mind. How can you forget how much I came undone for you? Or how I knew every single sin a of yours, all your darkness, and loved you anyway?

Is it because I’m argumentative? Is it because I fought any measure of control? Of authority? Is it because I’ll never be docile? Tell me. Tell me why you didn’t fight. Why you went quiet in the night and settled? Tell me. We both gave up forever to touch each other. To feel each other. We both know we are the closest to heaven we’ve ever come and now you’ve thrown it aside, told me to leave in the dead of night. So tell me? Do I surrender? Lay my weapon down and give up?

You say I refused to give you children. I did give you a child. And I gave that child up to save you. You say I didn’t try, tell me, did you ever ask if I was okay? If my body could handle another child? A pregnancy? Do you know that every month I end up in the hospital because I bleed so much I end up passing out? That nothing has worked and they don’t know if I could have any children? No. You don’t because you didn’t ask. And you didn’t care. You heard no children, I said I don’t know that I can have more. Do you know that for yours I wondered if you’d give that up to be with me, but it seems wherever the dart landed seemed like a better plan for you, whoever took the bait first would be better than just getting to love me. It breaks my heart over and over again.

[crumpledupletter]

Everything Has Changed

All I know is this morning when I woke up, I knew something now I didn’t before. And all I’ve heard since 12 hours ago was that everything has changed. You held the door opened for something I never thought was mine to claim.

All my walls that stood so tall came crashing down, and all I felt in my stomach were butterflies. The beautiful kind. All I wanted was to know you better now. Your eyes look like coming home and I knew everything has changed. All I know since yesterday was that we’d always be in each other’s lives.

Please don’t let this be all in my mind.

Please let me know you better.

Please hold the door open for me.

Please don’t ever walk away.

Please always be mine.

Please know I’ll always be yours.

All I’d know was pouring rain. Now you are my newfound grace.

[crumpledupletter]

Our separation has its faults but I don’t want to leave at all. So I’m writing this letter in teary ink. I just need some time to think. I tell myself I don’t know how to say goodbye to you, so goodnight will suffice.

I tell myself if I close my eyes, the sorrow will be gone by tomorrow. Maybe you are like me and waiting for the phone to do its work. Maybe you dream of tomorrow being on its way. Maybe this time we don’t walk away.

[crumpledupletter]

You said I’m the love of your life, about a million times.

And for that, I will never forgive you.

You drew dreamscapes of heaven and took me to hell.

Now I feel a hole. Never before and ever since.

Why did you have to go and make us momentary?

Leave me at the cemetery but never quite buried.

Why shit talk me under the tables?

Why talk rings and cradles?

It was momentary.

It was unnecessary.

Now you leave me here combing through your braids of lies.

And I’ll still see it, until I die, you’re the loss of my life.

[crumpledupletter]

I used to think Iris was about us.

Sometimes I still do.

Against my will.

Everything I have ever loved has claw marks. There must be scratches all over you. Scars from the moments I howled at the moon and begged her to bring me back to you.

I’d give up forever to touch you, cause I know that you always have felt me somehow. You were always the closest to heaven I’d ever been. I would breathe you in and gain a piece of my life back. I always thought you’d know me. Always understand me. But I am so tired of the tears coming. I don’t want to miss you. It’s breaking my heart. Breaking my soul. Leaving me bruised. Maiming me.

Day after day I want to hide from the world, cause they wouldn’t understand. You do. You did. I just wanted you to know who I am.

We both had looked for something we had been afraid to find. We both were broken and both wanted to hide. Scared to death I took a chance and let you inside. Loving you was not a choice. It was not something I willed. The world was collapsing inside me and I found life in your hands. It was second nature. Like it was just going to happen without force or happenstance. When it came to you, to the unknown of us, I thought you’d always stay. I thought you’d never let go. I thought you saw a light in my eyes. I didn’t account for you closing the door. Leaving me in absolute darkness while you picked another pair to look into.

[crumpledupletter]

My knuckles were bruised like violets. Suckered punched the walls cursing at the walls wondering why you left me running. Or maybe it was ego swinging. Or maybe it was hurt. Flashes of the battle come back to me in a blur. All that blood shed all over, what was it for? Here I am vowing not to cry anymore. My hand was the one you always reached for. Why draw up these good faith treaties, I’d rather draw curtains closed and drink the poison all alone. You begged me to trust you more freely but diesel is desire and you were playing with fire. Maybe it’s the past talking, screaming from the crypt. Maybe it was punishment for things we never did. Maybe that’s how I justified it, told myself you’d always remember the warmth of my burning embers. I told myself we’d survive the Great War. It turned into something bigger. In this haze I have a sense I’ve been betrayed by you. Here I am on the ground, soldier down, you looked down on me broken and blue, and beg me not to call off the truce, but I think I’ve lost you.

Should we plant a memory garden? We could place a poppy in my hair. I could walk away forever, and leave my scent of roses, hoping you’ll follow the trail. All’s fair in love, war, and poetry.