You gave me the house.
Left me with so many ghosts
I can't stand it.
The photos which collected dust
bring fresh floods.
The master bedroom echoes
with the sound of the love made there.
Your forgotten things
make me pause and remember
better days.
Days spent in the comfort of your presence.
Nights curled up at your side.
Now the silence grates the ears,
fingers stretch across emptiness,
missed moments wail,
and tears fall.

We were lovers first.
You made me feel beautiful, wanted.
The brief hours grew to days,
the days to weeks.
Time flowed in a stream of endlessness.

Like grew to ***.
*** to dinner.
Dinner to talking.
Talking to love.
Love to marriage.
Marriage to content.
Content to dissatisfaction.
Dissatisfaction to resentment.

The talking slowed to silence.
The company became a chore.
The smiles grew stretched.
The laughs were shorter.
The ******* a primal need.

I no longer felt wanted, beautiful.
The minutes seemed like hours,
the hours like days.
Time dropped like grains of sand.

We are merely memories.

I remember the sweet nothings whispered in the dark.
I remember the thrill in my chest when you slid your shirt off.
I remember the rough pad of your fingers caressing skin.
I remember the sigh falling from my half-parted lips.

My lips quirk in happy remembrance,
Then I remember the hurtful words,
the side comments meant without harm,
the side comments that cut like paper.
A long sting with tattered edges,
slowly seeping with heart's blood.

Your eyes once sky blue
now are ice,
sharp, painful, cold.
Your words once honey
now water in the ears,
irritating, shifting, drumming.
Your touch once silk
now is sandpaper,
rough, grating, unwanted.

I loved you once.
You loved me too,
or at least you said you did.
I doubt that now.
If you had,
you would have accepted me
for who I was
not who you wanted me to be.

I kept what I felt inside
Because you would always make it better
You would be sweet, kind
I'd forgive
Life would go on

Then a turn of phrase
I'd be mad
You would be sweet, kind
I'd forgive
Life would cycle
Again and again

I'd be mad
You'd be sweet
You'd be kind
I'd forgive

Then you left
I changed
You didn't
I got mad
You were sweet
You were kind
I left

A light in the darkness
A fire in the heart
A spark in the eye

Something felt, thought gone
Something intangible
Something good
Something bright

A lightness in the heart
A girlish giggle on the lips
A splash of smile long gone returned

Why do I feel like this?
You used words like swords for years.
I took the pain because I cared.
Then you deserted me in search of greed.
I found myself better without you.
I smiled more
I laughed more freely
I didn’t look in the mirror for flaws
I didn’t think about how to please you
I didn’t think about you at all.

then you walked back into my life
I felt insecure
I felt used
I felt angry
My list of dislike had grown to levels unthought of.

Yet I want to salvage the pieces like a shattered vase.
Super glue those misshapen shards together
like some pale shade of what was,
to save something better left broken.

Your smile is ice shards in my heart.
Your touch like electric shocks on my skin.
Your eyes like summer skies gone by.
Your words like razor blades.
Your kiss like poison.