I found an old sweatshirt of yours under my bed yesterday,
and I spent the day crying over a box of your memories
that I don't have the courage to throw away.
The days pass by at the speed of light,
but nights are spent endlessly heaving out old promises
of children we will never have,
of places we will never go,
or lives we will never share.
You left without a goodbye
and I convince myself that closure is what I need.
But somewhere behind my cobweb covered heart and dusty bones,
I know I really just need you again.
I built my flimsy paper home within your ribcage
and I saw you had a lit match balanced between your fingertips,
but I stayed.
Because I knew going in that this game was dangerous,
and I was willing to risk it all for the idea of you.
When the walls came down,
I frantically reached for some solitude to hold onto.
My hands clawed at the inferno looking for your familiar relief,
but all I found was ash.
Because that's all you really left in your wake:
black ash that thickly coated my insides,
suffocating me until the last molecule of air
exited my exhausted body.
Despite all this,
I still hold onto
the tragic memories,
the series of dismantled almosts.
The silence is crippling,
and the idea of what could've been,
plays painfully across my fragmented memories.
"You're simply extraordinarily ordinary."
This is my final goodbye.
I titled this poem
with a song from the album, "Scotland, I Wish You Had Stayed".
It was something I listened to a lot when you left.