they pried us apart with
knives and tweezers,
extracted every last nerve
and so we drift away.
what am I now?
empty vessel?
empty canvas?

I don't think vessel,
I don't think canvas.
I am an emptiness
unlikely to fill, blank
surface unlikely to
become masterpiece.

I'm something like a
balled up note, with things
like "love you" and "don't
forget the milk" written
on it, crumbled up, fallen
out of someone's pocket
long forgotten. words that
mean everything, but
all at once amount to nothing.

I'm a dried up river bed,
full of footprints and animal
corpses. I am empty, I am
devoid of life, I am...
I am nothing.

and you are gone,
fled the moment the
last tie was cut, a pillar
of relief to be free.
once, you were everything.
once, I was everything.
once.

thank you
for everything.
thank you for all of
our greatest moments,
thank you for our triumphs,
for our growths, for our victories.
and even for our losses, thank you for
the injuries. thank you for loving me, and for
destroying me. because in the wake of you, I have
learned more than I ever could have imagined. I am more
myself than I have been my whole life. you showed me what love
can be, and what love should be, and definitely what love isn't. you
showed me that I could break away from the things that
wreck me. that I can still grow and change and
become a more perfect version of a flawed
and broken girl. thank you for giving
me that strength. thank you for
loving me. thank you for
being the first, and
but the most for
not being my
last.

nothing but
frayed nerves
and liquor.
nothing but a
nightmare I
can't wake up
from.

I am waiting for permanence
to take shape, to be something more
than idealistic fantasy.
because that word sticks to me,
like tattoo, like a thick scar, the kind
your fingertips wander to in
idle moments. I want it to be real,
I want to lose myself in bottomless eyes
and understand that is what
permanence feels like.

you'll find me in that space
where the sun hasn't quite set
while the moon hasn't quite rose,
where dark and light are
somewhat at war with each other,
and their battle spreads across the sky
in violent hues of red and violet
and gold, when only a few stars
are brave enough to to share their
light. you'll find me in that tender
place between sea and sky, you'll
find me in the curve of his palm
where I rest like an empty house
waiting for love to come home.