loosen the laces
that tie me to you
  me to us
    me to them
      to anyone.

letting you go has been like pulling hangnails,
like removing limbs. I've learned to live
limbless, nursing ****** fingers.
nobody but me
changes the bandages.

they say time heals all wounds.
time does not heal
all wounds.

open wounds turn scar,
pink and shiny, then the
naked skin of old cuts. but the ache
lingers long after its healed, long
after each and every one of those
cuts has been sewn shut.

every now and then, the nerves sizzle
and your name flashes across my mind
bright and violent like neon against the black
sky of night.

and then you're gone again. just another
scar among many, still the only one that ever
really burns after all this time.

time passes,
another wound opens,
another name
in the flesh, another scar.

I'm so tired of healing wounds.

the inevitability the inevitability the inevitability
the pushback
the loss
the grieving the anger
the inevitability
the distance
the wounds
the healing
the wounds
the hands the harm
the scream
the whispers
the whisper
                                                                how are you still like this?

there are days the sun
captures me, pulls me back
into life and I feel it in every
cell of my body, light and
warmth and life.

and there are days I am
desperate for the ground to
open up and swallow me,
to blink out of existence,
for the planet to turn
without me on it.

the sunny days are few
and far between. I spend
far too much time with my
feet firm on the ground
waiting for departure.

I'm so afraid the time will
come where the sun isn't
enough anymore, and I won't
be enough anymore and
I'll give up waiting
for the departure and
leave by myself.

the ghosts in the attic
play melodies on the piano,
something about how
love will always end
in destruction, either in life
or after death.

they tell us stories of the
ocean, how she can carry a
ship yet slip through your fingers,
how she kisses the shores,
yet she's always in pull
to the moon.

the ghosts in the attic tell
us how your soul will always
be bound to the places that
harmed you the most, how you
will move through walls but
you'll always sink right back
to the stain on the carpet.

they tell you to learn how to be
good with your hands, to paint
the love you feel on every canvas
you touch, to carry a heart gently
but know to make a fist when needed.

they tell us how they lived and
died in agony, how they watch
the living do the same. how the cycle
repeats itself, how the ghosts
in the attic become us,
how we become them.

home is a hollow,
carved into the carcass
of buildings that once
held life, held love, held light.
hid myself away in the
crevasses; too deep to
really see, close enough
to the surface that they
eyes would still catch
the outside light.
found me in the reflections
and refracted silhouettes.
saw the ghost of the girl
trapped between then and
now, there and here.
tried so hard to coax her
out, save her, set her free.
the thing about saving
ghosts sewn into the darkness
is that they're more siren
than shade, and they'll
drown you in their darkness
before you ever even notice
the thinning of the light.

swallow the metal of my bones
because the taste of their weight
is a recipe from your own hands.
severed the paper thinness of my
skin because you wanted to taste
the nerves, learn the taste of my
undoing.

I am nothing now.
I am the spare parts
you didn't care for.

the hurt you gave
the hate you carry
the mess you made
the lies you taste
the story you tell
the guilt you swallow

poison me,
paint me the villain
because it suits
your pain  

I have become your
worst masterpiece
your ache,
your undoing.

shade me if you must,
leave yourself the wounded
while you hold the knife.
tell your lies, but you'll always
know the truth.