I held your eyes,
When I knew you wanted to die.
I held my tongue,
When you asked, “are you done?”
I held myself,
While everyone rushed to hold you.
You spoke like you knew all the right ways to hurt me,
But you sat there and cried,
In the silence after screams,
While I stared at the open sky.
I still have your letter,
Telling me that you trust me,
That I was beautiful,
Sitting in a box beneath my bed.
And now you can’t pick up the phone,
Or answer my texts.
I sleep above the burdens of my love,
Every night,
it tugs, incessantly, silently,
And there is nothing I can do.
I can still feel the door on my back,
My knees against my chest.
You, standing stoically on the other side,
Oh, how I try to imagine what your face held,
As I bared my heart to you in the darkness,
Every vein so carefully shielded by bone.
“Are you done?”
Am I done? Am I well and truly done?
The words ring in my head,
Even now, as I watch the moon rise and fall.
I don’t remember what I said that day,
But I remember footsteps receding down the stairs,
A door slammed shut,
Taking with it all of my air.
I remember the cold floor on my cheek,
My chipped nails digging into flesh,
To keep my own heart inside of me,
To keep it beating, breathing.
And still, you thought you could touch the knife,
Twist it, even.
But I am not a stagnant creature,
I will not be bit once, and reach into your jaws a second time.
And you, more than anyone taught me —
What is love but conditional?