i remember in an autumn thunderstorm, you clung desperately to me underneath our umbrella you told me you were scared of storms, but that you loved them, and i find now that that was the best way to describe my love for you. a storm that brewed. but a storm that i grew attached to. i fell in love with you in thunderous explosions of orange and blue the fall was our favorite season but i had no idea just what the **** i was falling into i thought that when i looked into your eyes i’d realized what i really truly wanted in my life and that was to be healed by those ******* eyes thunder shook you but lightning bounced straight from your throat and into my chest you stopped my heart you left me with a nasty scar that clung to me like doctor’s stitchings. so i tore at them, ripping charred flesh from my muscles almost as swiftly as my pen strokes against paper it became muscle memory and those memories of us beneath that clouding sky weigh me down shackling and chaining me to your promises grounded on the cracking asphalt of your street titled clover but that street was anything but lucky for us because it had more potholes than your ******* promises i have waited a month and a half to write this poem and the only thing that has kept me awake until three in the morning was the fact that you had the nerve to cling to the sweater in the bottom drawer of my nightstand stained with your promises, your memory, your fears and your bravery every glance, touch, kiss, smile, punch, tear, tear of fabric, and every booming sob that left my body for the first time in five years i can’t even cry when i read my writing about you that was another aspect of me you clinged to and something i couldn’t cling to do you know how much damage you’ve dealt me? mirrors i gaze into feel cracked shards of glass better describing who i am now than who i once was broken and you broke me human but still used me as your umbrella like i was worth something worth more than all the things you’d made me in an autumn thunderstorm