I listen to your old voicemails before I go to sleep because I want to remember the way your voice sounded when you loved me. I keep having these dreams about you that cut deeper than anything because even in moments that I’m not aware — you’re still there. I hate you and I love you and I hate you but hate is just a repressed form of love. I often get so wrapped up in the thought of you that I think I might’ve made you up. You seem so intangible — like a blur of a memory. I think, too often and too much about "us" and what that even means to me. I think I'm probably a chore for you. Something that you entertain because you feel a responsibility for or maybe you pity me so you answer my calls. This hurts worse then if you were to not answer at all. I wonder why I feel so debilitatingly in love with this person who seemingly feels nothing at all and if there’s a switch that I can turn it off with. I wish I felt numb like you. I wish I could go one second without obsessing over the thought of you. I wish every time I heard the doorbell ring I didn’t get a rush of nervous energy at the thought that it could be you or when I look out the window I wasn’t desparately trying to picture the way your car looked in front of my house. I wish I wasn't clinging to a time when your name brought me immeasurable joy or trying to remember the way the light hit your face or the way your arms felt around my waist. I wish I wasn't always searching for you in everything like a lost child — searching for you in places I know you'll never be. I wish I didn't panic at the thought of losing memories or the way you smell or the face you make when you concentrate. I wish the urge to see you and to call you didn't feel like something I'm not supposed to need. And I wish my heart didn’t leap out of my chest anytime I wondered about who’s getting the affection that I desperately miss. Most of all, I wish I just felt okay even if for a day.

the rifle versus the latter
existential counterparts
exhuming
i held your head up
when you were alone

i haven't heard you laugh in weeks;
is just the same song with a different beat

inject me with every insecurity
deny me my foresight
scoop my eye sockets dry
with silver spoons from childhood plight
turn the corners of my mouth upward with pins
in stifling approvable of your apathy
rip my teeth from root so i cannot express
grief and wild unrest
burn me of my tongue
make it so i struggle to say your name
twist and mangle my wrists
bend my fingers back
(one, two, three)
listen to the splintering bone
the intoxicating frailty
listen like your favorite song
the fading circulation in hi-fi stereo (on repeat)
bend my back for you
turn away as my spine snaps
under weight from mild neglect
unravel my nerves
string them like a guitar
play me a discord
cut me open with sharp words
and leave me exposed
slide my discs
until i’m weak in the knees
string me up by my ankles
and sever my feet to gain inches on me
peel back my skin
bind my veins
tether them to floor boards and ideas of leaving me
watch as the desperation seeps from me
tangle my hair and pull it back
like weighty curtains from my skull cap
crack me open
unspool my brains
re-wire my circuitry
introduce color then reverse it back
blow your breath into my ear
let it circle and suffocate me
will me not to feel
it will only complicate me
pull the desperation from the air
my fixed, heavy rain cloud
drape me with uncertainty
cover me in soot and paint me a burden
set me on fire
leave a thought
let it continue to escape me
you dot your “i’s” with crippling intensity
dripping in heartfelt symphonies
my velveteen,
you are a looming aftertaste
a foundation
a voracious hunger
to set roots deep within bone

i bite my nails to the bone
and when i bleed it reminds me that i am home
in a vessel made of stardust and controlled chaos
i am a tangled thought
a misrepresentation of misplaced passion
a piece of paper with an inkblot
made to diagnose a series of theories
about the distinction between them and us

Your favorite coffee cup still sits on the counter untouched.

I am panicking.

I am patching up and desperately traveling back to a distant recollection of a foggy memory. I am feverishly writing everything. Time is passing “us” by so quickly. I talk to the walls and pretend it’s you. I listen to old songs and think of things you used to. I stare at your things and will them to move.

There is such a stillness around me.

An awareness that most things we occupy our space with are lifeless. I often feel hollow. There is one thing that I drill into my head each morning that my feet hit the floor — you aren’t here anymore. I focus heavily on dates and times even though I realize time is leaving you behind.