What did that look mean
when you glanced at me like that?

Yes, it was true,
another person's lips had grazed mine
when you left me the first time,
and now that you'd come back,
you seemed to know something I didn't.

I hadn't lied
when I told you that
your lips felt right against my own
and his smokey breath did not,
and then the secret you had held was revealed
only slightly, of course,
and I didn't even notice.

When I told you that
I had wished I was kissing you instead,
what I had first thought was a look of love
was actually your look of embarrassment and shame
and this was because, you too, were a man with a smokey breath,
leaving imprints of your lips on another's
long before we had parted ways.

So, it wasn't her who kissed you first;
you filthy little liar,
and you were starting to feel bad
about what you had done.

I was none the wiser,
and sympathized with you,
thinking you too had felt like me,
a big misunderstanding between two people
and that you'd come back to me
because you realized my lips were better than another's,
not that you liked the idea
of getting away with infidelity
and then rushing back into my arms.

I always missed these signs,
and it eats away at me now
when I think about how many
times I should have known.

Why am I made to feel guilty for having loved him?
It wasn't my fault that he wasn't who he said he was,
and it didn't make my love any less genuine.

Why do I have to brunt all of this shame
for my innocent first real attempt at a safe love?
How was that fair to me?
All I wanted was to love and be loved.

But no, I had to pull myself together,
and immediately turn to shunning,
mocking, and avoiding him,
not even a month after he left me;
I had to repress how I had felt before to show face.

No one else had loved him as I did,
I was the odd one out,
and so I had to "hate" him too.
I still loved him; it wasn't fair.

He ruined everything
and I couldn't say anything about it,
stuck in the battle of knowing
I had to stand for justice and condemnation
of a man who had last held me in his arms
months before.

His bad behavior, in turn,
stole the grieving process from me.
I had to skip all the steps and lock it away
to protect others, to be strong,
and it wasn't fair.

I'm tired of feeling miserable
for having these good memories of him,
and it isn't my fault that he did bad things;
I just wish this never happened at all.

No one warned me about healing,
and that when you begin to let go,
it means working through all the things
you ignored along the way:
every weeping wound,
every halted, furious scream,
every memory you tried to forget,
and even the things you never knew
you'd felt in the first place.

To let go of everything that no longer serves,
I have to go back in time
and tell myself how it is all okay now,
and hope that will be enough
to set me free again.

Ask me to fall in love?
Love is a sickness,
and should it leave such scars
as it had the last time I was afflicted,
I might shrivel up and die.

Dare it to leave wounds without sutures?
Skin without scratches?
Bodies without bruises?

Two afflictions of the mind are unbearable:
Both of two in love
And the sadness that sullies it.

Distance has become my new lover,
and I cower behind her,
I beg her not to let me get hurt like before,
Lest I fall sick again.

The thought of being in love with anything else feels
Intense,
Like fingers digging much too far
Into my skin,
Drawing the deep oxygenated blood to the surface.

Foreign bodies with foreign bodies,
unknown hands with unknown hands,
we said we are in love together,
but we don't know where we stand;
such is the torture
of ghosts loving ghosts,
you never dared to tell me who you were,
nor I shared with you who I am.

Look at us now,
just two shadows in love,
no wonder when the two converged,
they slipped right through each other.

Can't you see this was all one big, cruel joke?
I have finally clawed myself out of my grave,
just to turn around and spit at the headstone,
and I no longer recognized who was put to rest.

I was wrongfully buried here,
so why won't the grave digger free me from the cemetery?
I implore you, please, to listen, as I insist
I don't belong here!
I have healed all the things that put me to my death,
and I think those that decide to live again should be exhumed.

Why must the past keep trying to push me back
into shallow dirt?
Trust, I know,
that the grave plot never cared one way or another;
it was already calling my name and continues to try
to call me back,
but all I ask is that the darkness let me start over.

The same mouth that kisses,
Damns you,
The same arms you run to
Swing back,
And the ones you love the most
Will hurt you,
It's all a part of the plan.