I’m stuck

Between hating the love stories where they didn’t fit but “love overcame it anyways”

because why did we play with the pieces that couldn’t fit together and pretend it didn’t matter

avoiding conversations like they were distant future things, intangible, and uncondensable

and as I sit here, rooting through the leftovers of my processing
I know my grief simply overshadows the joy for a moment
Holding space for the lost piece of me, I am happy, and honoured you get to hold.

but grieving her nonetheless.

So I’m stuck

pretending like I won’t always, on some level, be trying to put the pieces together

cause  “love overcame it anyways”

I didn’t realize how much I changed who I was

until my head hit my pillow and the clock kept moving
while I stayed still
or a metaphorical semblance of it anyways

trying to sleep like I hadn’t trained myself
like a dog with a bone
to text you goodnight, or call when you got off

I wasn’t aware how much you soaked into the fibre of my being. Which is why before midnight is so ******* hard.

because all I want to do

is ask how your day was. like a dog with a bone, trying not to beg for more

I know some day
a little Lizzy may ask me
“what was your first love like mum?”

and I’ll have to muster up the way to tell her

He was perfect.
because he made me fall in love with life, with love.
With Scotch, and the way the smoke could be found twirling in his perfectly green eyes.
he taught me all the ways I should be loved, and to love in return.
the ways I should be respected, and worshiped.
he kept my heart safe, and gave me freedom, gave me joy like I’d never known before.

And all while choking back the emotion. I’d also have to tell her

but he also gave me sorrow
like I’d never known before.
because for all of his perfection, he was a fish, and I a bird.

we couldn’t reside in each others worlds for too long, cause darling we didn’t fit.

It just wasn’t meant to be.

“Do you miss him?”

Only every time I smell a campfire, taste a scotch, or see the sea.

was it my fault?
that I fell in love with your dreams, your thoughts, your potential, and your cheeky painting that would hang in our living room?

because some times I have to wonder

was it yours?
When in those first few months, you showed me all the beautiful ways you can paint with colours. Diving headfirst into all the ways people can make you smile and fall in love. how you promised me the sky, the moon and the stars. But then, it felt like their weight, became crushing. And those promises became ‘for later’ and the way you told me you’d move anywhere, wasn’t really true. And Christmas of 2027 might’ve been ******* great. But does our dinning room table still look like that?

and I was left wondering if I changed, or you just didn’t really have the rope, to grab them all.

How can you hold some of my favourite memories
And make me cherish every piece of you
but then be shattered
by the man I knew you could be

I scrubbed or at least tried to
every layer of skin he touched or weirdly rubbed
scrapping my lips into the colour they used to be when you kissed me
and I sat in the bathtub
having scrapped my tongue to a lovely red
knowing it wouldn’t have happened if I was with you
but I’m not yours anymore, am i?

he told me I was beautiful
but you would’ve told me I was stunning
and I now
have to go on
knowing you’d call me stunning, while he
he only calls me beautiful