your presence invades my mind with such ease it's almost like you're meant to be there
i can't remember the last time i saw you, but you still find a way to intrude my dreams
and they are always so splendid and serendipitous
it almost occurs to me that i might miss you
but your presence also invades so carelessly, breaking me and breaking me
down
and i remember why i don't miss you

I miss the feeling of you looking at me in the shadows of the night and sleepily confessing your love to me.
I miss the nights that you would always hold me tighter if I moved even an inch.
I miss the early mornings, in the dim light of the nearing dawn, where you would kiss me slow while gripping my hips.
I miss the afternoon naps when it would be too hot to hold each other, but we would end up in tangles by the time we woke up.
I miss standing under the steady, hot stream of water with your lips to my forehead and you hugging me close.
I will never forget the soul-shattering pain I felt the last time I saw you, when you told me, "I will always love you, even if I can't show it," because what kind of pathetic line is that?
I will never forget the self-control it took to not ***** on your shoes when you said you were leaving.
I will never forget the betrayal in your eyes when you asked me if we would always love each other, and I responded with, "I never loved you."
I will never forget the sting of those words slipping off my tongue, fighting with each syllable to vibrate through the air.
I will never forget that those words weren't true, but I had to let you go, and I needed you to let me go.
I will never forget the way I loved you, for I still do everyday.

My religion is listening
for your name in the wind

God bless the days
that I hear you whispering

Heaven help the days
when you are silent

Your presence deluges me
like the devil on my shoulder
who knows no boundaries

It is all I can do at the end of the day
to fall to my knees and beg for your
sinful temerity

May He strike me down
every time I wish to feel
your hand on my thigh

And may He resurrect me
every time you break into
my soul and ****** my humanity

Do you ever wonder if we are somehow connected with our planet? As if it's fate is intertwined with ours? Oh, because I do. I couldn’t tell you the last time I felt as if I were thriving. Last winter was one of the coldest I've lived through. It creeped in, slow as ever, freezing me from the inside out. First, it started with my heart, the most vulnerable part of me. When my heart had been captured, the rest of my body surrendered. I heard the whispers, the rumors, but I could not bring myself to care. I did not realize I was dying from frostbite until he saved me. I wouldn’t say saved as much as thawed.  He came into my life and held on so tight that the seemingly unbreakable wall of ice around my heart, cracked right open. He was spring and he rejuvenated me. He thawed out my body and my vessels were running with the full force of a river filling with snow melt. He wrapped me in his arms and I swear his beating heart resuscitated my still one. What was vacant chamber, was now filling with warmth and hope.
But, you know what they say about hope. It breeds misery.
I was living and running and basking in the sun for some time. But, it didn’t take me long to figure out the frostbite leaves permanent damage. I had only been on a high. High from all the oxygen coursing through me, high from those dark blue eyes promising me everything. Then fall came around, and those gentle hands and shining eyes turned into arguments lasting for nights. Late nights of laughter turned into sleeping pills and whiskey and late mornings. He had left and I found out that my heart never really started beating again. The tissue had been dead for months; his sweet words fooled me into believing I had been healed.
This winter is awfully mild, almost as if the storm inside me has gotten tired of restlessly beating me down. I feel oddly calm, an unsettling calm. Numb would be a good word. I can't feel anything anymore. I've tried to let the poor boy in and I have tried to let her in. I just don’t feel the spark. I don’t see what use it is to waste effort on somebody I know I am going to leave in the cold. I am waiting for him to come back because I know winter is going to hit me with full force one of these nights. For now, I'll just leave the whiskey bottle on my bed stand. I'll lock the pills in my jewelry box. I'll save my remedies for the day that I find that I can’t run from the vengeful earth no more, for the day that I can't run from you anymore.

How does one person manage to root themselves so deeply in your life, that when she goes, your whole self is upheaved? From my collapsed heart to my broken hopes, everything is torn apart. Into the lumen of my bones, all I feel is pain and the hurt of a truly broken heart. I see her ghost with every corner I turn. I can't breathe. I can't see. I can't do anything with this burn, searing through my ribs like a bandit on the run. How do I fix the damage? How do I repair my roots? All of them are shredded, not one was spared. They say it takes time. Anything takes time. I have time. But how am I expected to grow without the sun? Without nourishment? There's only been gloomy clouds and hailstorms that slowly break down the last of my sanity. I can't grow like this, all twisted and dark. I hear people talking. They say that the shadows have taken over my soul. Yeah, you might see my body walking around, but you won't see anything in these lifeless eyes. I'm trapped in here. I'm bruising, bleeding, barely hanging, trying to escape. It won't be long until I'm six feet under, buried by darkness.

A part of my died last night. Well, I don't know if it so much as died as it just vanished. I think I lost the most important part of a soul. And that's the capacity to hope. I sobbed from dusk til dawn because part of what made me human walked out on me. How am I supposed to find happiness without hope? Without love? I kept my chest cracked open and vulnerable for the chance that he would take me back. All I have now is my dying heart and the final truth that I will never call him mine again. I feel as if I cried my soul out yesterday. I'm just a walking, breathing robot. A phenomenon of nature! I don't feel phenomenal. I feel like I'm doomed to a life of numbness. I lost love, then I lost the hope that love would one day fill the empty spaces in me again. The loss of hope is the loss of humanity. I grieved for the disappearance of the self that I had been. I am different today. Colder, less compassionate, slightly less alive.
When I woke up this morning, my ribs felt as if they all broke overnight. But I know that the crows outside my window must have finally gotten in. They had been picking at my bones, trying to get at the decaying flesh underneath. And I let them. What's the point of salvaging something that is past the point of no return? I think the worst feeling, the feeling that can break a person in half a second, is hopelessness. And when you walked away from me and half-heartedly said, "I'll always love you even if I can't show it," I felt everything but hope for a better tomorrow. Sorrow. Anger. Frustration. Grief. Desperation. Haziness. Numbness. Lifeless. Hopeless.