So often,
I find myself whispering
that there is no such thing as time wasted.

That there is a lesson to each loss
justification to the pain.

And I believe that.
I do.

I keep whispering to myself
that the time I spent on you
was not wasted.

Even though,
today it hurts
to remember the way we were
the way I could close my eyes and be blind to you.
I keep whispering to myself that you were not a waste of time.

That no matter how worthless and careless and conniving and disappointing
you turned out to be–
the things I learned from your failures
gave grounds to the time I lost loving you.

yes loving.

I loved you.

I cannot stop hating myself for the things that I told you.
that you are decent.
that you are worth more than you know.
Why do I feel like I owe you some sort of apology for that?
For nothing more than some misplaced belief
that you were better than you turned out to be.

Every time
every ******* time
I remind myself that you taught me something
that despite the pain and the reeling
and the way you punished me for becoming disillusioned to you,
you were not a waste of time
I want to scream.

Because you are a waste of air and space
and any other material thing you might have stolen from someone.

But here I am.
Tagging the seconds you cost me with merit.
because I will not give you my life like the others.
I will not give you anything else.

rewrite my name

In whatever script suits you.
Twist the letters
Distort the consonance
until the whispered sound that turns my head
begins and ends with you.

Scratch your fingernails over my mind–
make it skip like a broken record

drown me in your words.
let them overcome me
I want all that I hear and breathe to be

The sound and smell of you.

rewire my heart
to beat along with the rhythm of yours.

I want the parts of me,
definitively mine,
To melt and mold with yours.

So that I might know you deeply and entirely.

cut me down to the bone
look at the spoiled, sick
pieces of me.

and ask me
what went wrong.

I’ll show you the invisible scars
the footsteps on my heart
the fingerprints on my wrist
the scalding burns that scathed the neurons in my hippocampus.

Slice me open.
navel to nose
and walk away with bloodied hands.

I’ll keep the scars and scratches
and turn my head to the tune of your name.

We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists

and begs that,

if only for a moment,

our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.

A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.

The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.

The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.

We cannot write silence,
but we can try.

to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.

I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.

I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.

I love to hate you
Heart.

I hate to love you too.

I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.