take your time,
it's alright to go slow;
but my god I want to know
how it feels
to kiss you.

eventually I'll stop writing about you.
I miss you, in a way. I still love you,
in a way. probably always will.
but after awhile, after it sets in,
you will evaporate. you will stop
being in the foreground of my
waking mind. even now, the space
you occupy is so small. more or less
of a habit, I suppose. the habit
of thinking of someone you loved
for four years. you on my mind
is a knee-**** reaction. I guess I
thought since I did the leaving,
it wouldn't be like this. I thought it
would be like ripping off the band-
aid. the residue that's left rinses off
with a little water, a little soap, a little
scrub. oh, no. you are wound. healing,
but still bruised, still sort of aching.
but you are an exit wound now, the
memory of an injury that will come to
pass. someday, you won't even be
background. you'll be the faintest
whisper of somebody I used to know,
a trace of somebody I used to be.

when you finally let go of me,
let me go with grace.
remember that I loved you.
remember how much.
remember the exact
cadence of my voice
each and every time I said it,
the feel of my palm
against your cheek.
the taste of my lips
on yours. don't forget
how I held you,
and how I held you up.
remember my courage,
remember my strength.

understand this:
letting you go was so
unbelievably hard -
so distressingly painful
that I almost couldn't.

but remember all those nights
you weren't there.
remember the words of those
girls you chose over me,
again and again.
remember the taste of
every lie you ever told me.
keep in mind the company
you kept, and how rarely
you went to me first.
think of my loneliest nights
where all I wanted so
desperately was you -
and how you always wanted
for something else.

and when you sit in anger,
thinking that I gave us up on a
whim. please, hold in your hands
the weight of me and the weight
of my hopes.
because my god, I wanted it to be
you. but everything you ever did
unraveled that boulder of me
until all that was
left was the barest grain of sand.

carry me gently;
I am something of a
fragile little bird
and I trust the weight
of your hands
will not crush me.

I was torn apart so slowly, I barely noticed.
but I was in pieces long before I met him.
I was a lonely, empty shell of a girl when I met him,
already chewed up and spit out by one boy
and by countless others long before either.
when I met him, I was desperate for something
and it blinded me. I met him and I was blind, and so I loved him.
I loved him with everything I had in me,
I loved every ounce of his potential, both real and imagined.
I loved his give no ***** attitude, I loved the way he spoke,
I loved the way he was absolutely
unlike any person I’d ever met.
and this was my tragic flaw:
often enough, “unlike anyone I’d ever met”
seemed more or less to mean
“someone who’s going to rip you to pieces.”
but god, did I love that boy. I
loved him when distance stretched out between us,
I loved him when my phone never lit up and
my message count was at a constant zero.
I loved him when he’d disappear for days and
I loved him even when it felt like loving him was wrenching out my own guts.
something in me was severed,
and I couldn’t find it in myself to understand
that this is not how love is supposed to be.
love isn’t meant to make you lonelier, more miserable, more empty.
love isn't meant to hollow you out, to empty
every part of you that ever mattered.
that escaped me each time he lied,
each time he cheated,
each time his woman of choice reached out to me
to tell me what **** my boyfriend was.
I wish I would have listened.
I wish he wasn’t so brilliant an architect,
because he sure built himself a throne of lies.
locked me so deep into that castle I couldn’t see beyond his walls.
I couldn’t escape, didn’t know how, didn’t know I wanted to.
didn’t know how badly I needed to.
through everything, he was a pillar. he was bravery and
strength and resilience – to me, anyway.
but mostly he was just a clever liar, and I was an easy believer.
he was my religion, and I didn’t question his teachings.
he believed his own fables, though.  
as he crafted, so his lies became his own truth.
We were both blind, foolish idiots.
everyone but me watched me crumble beneath his weight,
and it took too many years for the glass to crack from my own inside,
but I saw it. I saw the mangled mess I’d become
under his kingdom. I saw my bleeding lips and my cracked fingers and
my dead eyes. I saw the monster in him,
the monster that didn’t know any better.
he wasn’t a monster on purpose, he wasn’t evil.
he was just as broken and hopeless as I was – but
my pity, my sympathy, my love couldn’t carry him anymore.
a monster who ignores his own reflection will never change.

and so I left.
I gathered up the remaining shards of my being
and I walked out his front door,
and even as he swore and scream and fought and cried,
I slipped like the ocean through
his desperate,
pleading fingers.

tender little fingertips
too afraid to let go -
tracing at the frail
lines of your bittersweetest
existence.

and they'll tell you
to wait it out
to let it be,
let you sink
while demanding
you rise beyond
hand-drawn lines.

the last time
I felt you slipping-
I felt you slip like
ocean through my
fingertips.
I felt the shift,
and I knew
I'd lose us somewhere
along the line.
I knew the last time
I kissed you,
standing in the rush
of cars and departures
and arrivals,
I knew as I held on
to you with fevered desperation
I knew it was the last time.
I couldn't say it then,
I couldn't say it for awhile,
but somewhere in there
I always knew.

and I'm sorry.
I'm sorry you're
not what I want.
I'm sorry
I can't be what
you need.

I had to let you go,
and it was the hardest
and most freeing thing
I've ever done.