sometimes my apathy falls
like a silk robe to the ground,
and once again I stand before you

naked.

ashamed of myself
I try to cover the monster that you ran from.

I walk on the sands of the hourglass
for our time has ended.

there is only one set of footsteps
because I needed you to carry me
but failed to realize that you were not strong enough.

I sit alone on the beach
unable to listen to Best Coast
because that would make me cry.

I hug myself
and feel very
very small.

the gentle waves of memories
lick at my feet:
your unimpressed face when I laugh at the way you mispronounce words,
or just your face
or just the way you could make me laugh
your disgust when I joke about your **** ***,
or just your ***
or just the way we could joke about that.

it almost makes me smile
but you are the only person alive who knows my tickle spot.

the way your fingers comb from the back of my neck
to my bangs like a fisherman's net,
a feeling the sea breeze wants me to forget
as it tousles my hair violently.

the shore has too much of your face.

I dive into the water to cleanse myself
of the haunting absence of your presence

but I am too small.

my thoughts and your words surround me,
and in my attempt for closure
I am nothing more than closed.

cleansing nothing at all,
I drown in this baptism
as the distorted and unfamiliar
waters of the past soak my lungs
emptying me of breaths of hope
filling me with waters of desperation.

I am sinking into the darkness of depression
my chest compressed like the lungs
of a deep sea diver with no chance of return.

my life consists of needing mirrors
to remind myself
that I am not invisible

you have taken parts of me
and thrown them away without question
without regret.

the ease with which you let me go
echoes within me
like a "*******" spoken in church

a crack on the pane
of the room's only window.

you were not a liar
but you made yourself one

and I say that I do not hate you
because I've forgiven you

but you made that a lie also
you shaped it so that the reason for my lack of hate
is that I can no longer bring myself to care.

I will smile when I see you
because you can no longer hurt me.

your apathy shook me
like an antique chandelier
just before it crashes to the ground

and the fact that you read my poetry
and feel nothing
makes me shiver

you are cold.

you are the corpse frozen in indifference
a dead heart pumping the liquid
of fake tears.

you look and move like you used to
but I can see the stitches in your skin
the glassy, empty, gaze in your eyes

you are a monster
but I am no longer afraid.

I drop my torch and pitchfork
and watch you
destroy all the things that we built.

I raise my palms

and warm myself by the fire.

I am a leech hungry for pity.
I say I want death
but what I really crave is recognition for the life lost.

If I cut my wrists
will the red flash like warning signs
in an empty road?
will the blue of bruises
cry out to you like a lake in the desert?

How much will it take for you to see me?
I'm sorry my tears are colorless
they cannot paint the story of my pain
they cannot make the ribs of this cathedral
a stained-glass window.

I am as silent and grim as a cemetery
looking peaceful in just the right light.
Look beyond the beautiful
mausoleums,
the ivory plaques,
the angel statuettes...
dig deep for the decaying bones
the foul smell
the dead body that I am,
being eaten and gnawed by worms
and invisible, microscopic, living things.

I used to enter the coffins of bathroom stalls
to dance my weird away
to be free  from prying eyes…
now, they are chambers for my sadness
too small to hold it all

they are the mummy's sarcophagus
and I am cursed with your ghost.

I am
lonely

but the only place
large enough to hold all this loneliness
are your wide open arms.

"move on"
you said.
as if it was easy
like loving you,
as if it wasn't more
like dismantling pyramids from the top
down with a toothpick and an unsteady hand.

someday you will choose to love
but I am not the girl
to change your mind.

I am slowly accepting your death
brushing the dirt off of artifacts:
the way you held me
like an ancient civilization’s most precious deity,
late night walks
through labyrinths, with no wish for threads of return
jazz concerts, green jokes,
our staple, our oral tradition
and food always parted at the middle
a sacrifice for all the hopes we had
in this dating ritual.

you will never be the you that I once knew,
that you is dead
mummified,

existing only in my memory
like a brain kept in a jar
away from the rest of you.

This new you
(the only you that exists)
is a stranger
a different person
an un-dug desert, jungle un-ventured

and though
I grieve for he who has died
it would be stupid to dig up his grave
inside of you.

sometimes I think of you and die inside. and I end up crying in bathroom stalls. I miss you. I miss you.

sometimes I want to send you all these books I've read because they remind me of you but the truth is that no two people read the same book, no two people are in the same relationship, a conversation  is not shared, a moment, a laugh, a look. We were never a we. There was a you and an I. A you with your thoughts and an I with mine.

sometimes I think that perhaps if I write you letters. endlessly. endlessly. and put them all into a box I would eventually come to realize that there will never be a possibility of you replying to them. And you turn into nothing more than a thing in the distance that my voice will be unable to reach. and slowly. slowly. I will accept that you have gone. that how we are is no longer what we once were and that we can never be that again.

we used to refer to each other as "home". are you a wandering vagabond just like me? are you a homeless, restless, soul? are you like Julian's tourist? I am. I am. I am. You were my ultimate symbol of acceptance. and now nowhere is safe. I have taken to walking the streets every chance I get. Every time my mind is not locked on some book. on some lecture. on some dream. I am walking. walking. walking. It is the only way I can survive. to stop. to pause. would only bring me to the loss of you. it is this reality I run from.

I read book upon book to escape you. blare music to my ears til I'm dead. but all the words contain you. every line has you. the songs sing in your voice. you are everywhere. there is nowhere to run.

I'm sorry for being too much like Tereza, you deserved more than that.

and I am too scared to open my journal.

they say doing a thing 29 times makes it a habit
then I thought of all the times this day
this week
this month
that I didn't see you
and think that
that had to have been more
than 29

yet
I'm still not ******* used to it.

loneliness clings to me like wet paint
so I walk the streets at night
leaving behind neon footsteps

traces of your absence
color the asphalt
blue on black
the wind is cold
but at least it touches me.

I have grown more intimate with the rain
you are unfamiliar.

my brother's phone vibrates
and I remember when the sound
was once
yours.

I am lonely
and I am sorry for this.

I hang on you like a noose
I am the weight you drag
the useless end of a tow truck

I know I shouldn't need you as much as I do
it is unhealthy
it is unfair

**** me.

like all parasites,
I must die
so you can explode like the amazing fireworks display you were always meant to be
or burn burn burn, you infinite star..