Let him miss you
Let him roll over in the morning to find you gone, your absence filling the empty side of the bed like a flood
He will drown before he even wakes up
Let him know what it's like to have the sheets to himself when his hands reach out and find too much space to grab, a vacant imprint of you still on the mattress
Let him crave the hold of your body against his, laying down, molded together in unison
Let him miss the crook of your neck and how his face fit perfectly in it like a hollowed shell
Let him miss your skin and his own announcement of its softness
Let him miss how fingers would run swiftly along the folds and creases
Let him miss the tracing of your veins that led him home, a purple and blue reminder of familiarity
Let him miss your legs folding between his while sleeping
Let him miss your breath in his ear
Let him miss your words blanketing around his fears and his stresses, how your language was the only kind capable of calming
Let him miss your comfort like a Midwest winter without a fireplace to lay in front of, like below zero temperatures with a broken furnace in charge of heating the air
Let him feel his heart leave his chest when he thinks he sees you at the store, at a concert, bar, restaurant, all of the places he knows you aren't
He will look for you anyway
Let his lips mumble your memory with every shot of whisky that meets them
Let him taste you with each cigarette he smokes with the intention of forgetting
Let him hear your voicemail when he calls you at 3 am
Let him leave his drunken words to a mailbox you will never check
Let him say your name in his sleep
Let him wonder where you are tonight
Let him feel your ache in every muscle, every bone, every limb
Let him wonder if you're aching too
But don't give him the satisfaction of knowing you are

Don't tell him you are splitting like the red sea, your heart spilling as it parts
Don't let him know you are near freezing to death without palms to protect you from the cold, how this December was one for the records
You will look back and wonder how you ever managed to survive
Don't let him know that getting up and out of bed is a ropes course you are still trying to complete
Don't let him know that every bit of ink made permanent on your body is too much reminder to look at, that the words are growing with unwanted by the second
Don't let him know that tonight you are too far from the sun to expand
You are shrinking from the darkness and you don't know how to let the light back in
Don't let him believe that your smile is anything but a portfolio of happiness
Don’t let him know that your laugh is merely a symphony crafted from regret
Don't let him know that he is the ringing in your ear that refuses to go away like a migraine, bringing blurry vision and a pain in the back of your head
Don’t let him know you still crave him like a bad addiction, the withdrawal being the worst it’s ever been
Do not let him know if you miss him
Do not let him know you do
There is no purpose in missing what never made you whole
You are enough human without another to need you
If he misses you tonight, let him
If you miss him tonight, don't.

Tell me when it was
The first time you learned to hate yourself
The first time you tripped over your own fault lines
And started taking caution in every step
When did it happen?
Was it at 10?
When your shaking hands couldn't hold still
And the shame of them drove you into isolation
Maybe it's because others noticed
Or because they did their best to make it clear you were different
I don't think you know
That the rhythm you had and still have
Is unlike the rest
It is crooked and uneven but beautiful nonetheless
You didn't know it then
And accepting unsteadiness is easier said than done

Tell me when it was
The first time you learned to hurt yourself
Could it have been at 13?
When the weight of too much pressure motivated you to lose it
To the point where bones stuck out more than your voice
Loud girl became quiet that year
And then even more so the next
When your changing body didn't morph the way you would have liked it to
Left you shaped uncomfortably
A little too top heavy
The kind that drew unwanted attention
At a time when standing out was the last thing you desired
You turned skin into a battlefield into remnants from too many losses
Wrists became front lines, then hips, then neck until
You became too much destruction to keep the war going
You learned that it is impossible to win in a fight against yourself

Tell me when it was
The first time you learned to forget yourself
Was it at 15?
When the sacrifice of your body wasn't enough
To make a careless boy love you
It was a silly thing to give it all away
When you barely had enough of you for yourself
Your efforts changed after that
Trying too hard turned into not trying at all
Feeling too much turned into feeling nothing at all
You learned to repress and erase
And start over in the morning
You have been heavy from trying to hide away for so long

Tell me when it is
The first time you learn to love yourself
Will finally be after all of the years of disappointment?
Of self-deprecation?
When you realize you deserve more
Than to be the dust swept off to the side
Deserve better than to be an ashed out version of your potential
You were not meant to be wasted
You were not meant to be washed out and pushed down
You were meant to stand tall

The first time you learn to love yourself
Will be when you realize flaw is inevitable
When your skin turns itself different colors
And nothing can be done to change it
You will then learn acceptance

The first time you learn to love yourself
Will be when you stop comparing
When you look in the mirror and see only yourself in the reflection
Nobody else
You were meant to be here
You were meant to embrace it all
This body
This skin
This image
The only one you will ever have
The same one you will have to love
And eventually you will,
You'll learn how to.

You use too many big words
You say inevitable too often
You are addicted to nicotine
Smoke cigarettes too frequently
You drink too much when you do
And when you do,
You're a mess
I know all of this
But I want to know your secrets,
Your fears,
Your nightmares,
Your happiness,
I want to know it all
I just don't know to ask
Or how to find words big enough to make up for the courage I lack
Maybe a better vocabulary could suffice for the pride I do not have
My interest in you has always been inevitable and I don't mind it
I stopped smoking weeks ago and I've never needed to
But I keep a pack for when and if I need to feel burning sensation
I only drink on rare occasion
And when I do it is never more than a glass
I am not reckless and
I am not a lot like you but I like you
I like your habits
Both good as well as bad
And I want to be one of them.

yes

you're ruining me