I. I am so angry it burns my lips to speak, lava drips from my tongue and chars my skin and fries my hair and melts my clothes. I am so angry it consumes me it hurts me and it burns me and i do not get to feel any of it.

II. I wish I was a tape recorder. I wish I could remember things better, I wish I could spin myself around the words and play them back in my head later and never forget them. The only thing I can't press pause, or rewind, or erase, is exactly how you sounded when you left.

III. Sometimes I miss you so much I feel like I am running a race dead last and I have anchor weights on my ankles, I never think I'm going to make it.

IV. I think this is for the best but oh god I’m sorry my heart feels like it’s going to fall out of my mouth and onto the pavement

V. Last night someone took advantage of me and today I woke up feeling like it was my fault, it is nostalgic in the most terrifying way. I don't know how I'm doing this without you anymore.

VI. If this is love I want nothing to do with it.

VII. I am forced to become exactly what I need. I have spent too much time nailed to the floorboards right where you left me. I am right where you left me.

VIII. I think about how you have touched me and I feel sick, I think about your hands on me and I want to take showers and scrub my skin and I can’t breathe. I wish no one would ever touch me or kiss me or put their hands on me ever again.

IX. I don’t want to feel anything anymore. I told you I was going to be close to you in two months and you waited until four AM to tell me that seeing me would make you remember what you have done to me. I was awake. I told you to never forget it.

X. Get out of my head, I will not let you turn me hard. I felt soft, I still fall asleep wondering if your hands are cold. I do not want to let you convince me that love is bad.

XI. Yesterday, you told me you missed me. Yesterday, I couldn't force myself to look at you. Yesterday, I said, "I miss you too, but there is empty space where you told me you did not love me. There is nothing here for you anymore." Yesterday, I lied but I will repeat that mantra into my head until I undo whatever damage you have done to me. I will not let you convince me that love is bad.

This is my bargain.
Day for night
and night for day.

There isn't a time where I hadn't wished
that the day would end to make way for night.

Nights offer a bleak sense of comfort.
Almost as if they'd grant a temporary cloak which
you could huddle under and think or...
Overthink in the dark.

You could bargain shamelessly with tears running streams down your face and no one could see.
You could negotiate with reality for the slight perchance that things would turn out alright come daylight.
You could voice out your barter in hushed tones and still be somewhat assured that no one would know.
All of this...
In the cover of night.

Then when sleep eludes, you can't help but beg for day to come.
For with the light comes the day's responsibilities; all eager and raring to go.
Much like runners at the start line, anticipating the shot to be fired at the crack of dawn.
Shot fired and they'd come swooping down on you...
Sweeping you off your feet and carries you off to where you need to be, doing what you're paid to do for the next 8 to 10 hours.

That is your break from the dark.
That is your retreat from all the thinking.
That is your escape from... yourself.

And then...
4 hours into the day, you're wishing for night again.

Staring at the full moon thinking of a time when our love was new, tender hugs and shy kisses, wide awake dreaming of you.
Staring at the half-lit moon, I surrendered my heart too soon, knowing it was destined to lose, nothing could hold me back from you.
Staring at the quarter moon, I'm thinking of a day back in June, you sung to me in off-key tunes, I whispered back in beats of two.
Staring at the blackened moon, I'm wide awake remembering you, with saddened eyes and guilty lies, my tongue is blue and so are you.

my dark waters stir
turning the moon's placid reflection
into a chaotic dance of broken light
echoes of churning
deep water
saturate
and raise your foreboding laughter
up and over the old well's lips
but you will not awaken me
to burn this nightmare into my core
rather I shall sleep into dawn
awaken to a silent Sun
you once held my heart below these waters
but unlike all those that followed
I survived you
you may impose fear in the heart
of a wayward toad
or other spineless woodland creatures
but I sleep well
immune to your frozen tears

It got so bad
he couldn’t sleep.
Frenzied bedsheets,
pillow a swamp of sweat.
He’d swig milk
from the carton,
eyes a crush of crimson
and wouldn’t say a thing.

Then he’d mention he could hear them still.
The duh-duh-duh-duh of bullets
zooming towards strangers,
the thunderous stomach-rumble
of an erupting grenade.
I’d grip his hand and he’d cry,
shake his head, trickle out names.
I couldn’t help so I cried too.
The therapist would ****** tissues at us.

I’d be careful with noises.
If I dropped something
he’d shoot up like
an electric-shocked puppet.
Body at home,
mind at war.
He smelt death in the air,
the energy sapping from his body
as if a pin had perforated his skin.

I had to drag him up
from the bathroom floor,
as if a putrid corpse
wrenched from a river.
     Why is it me?
     What did I fight for?
That’s what he asked me.
I didn’t know, wouldn’t know,
and we cradled each other
as the shower spat out water
for a minute, for an hour.