in the absence,
the vacancy,
i am alone
with me
and we are
learning how
to sit in silence
together, how to
make dinner for
just us, how to be whole
again.

i am feeling less like
a caricature of myself,
less colored outside the
lines and haphazard
and the more i cut
away at the things which
do not serve, the more
i am my own for the first
time in so long.

to be tethered to no one
but me, i am finally,
finally free.

do i miss you?
i miss a lot of things.
i miss the sound of the garage door
of the house i grew up in.
i miss the toughness
of the acres of yellowing
grass bruising my baby feet.
i miss the smell of chlorine early
in the morning and the
sound of the windchimes in the
late evening.
i miss the sound of the front door
of my first apartment,
i miss the creak of the wood floors
in the old house,
i miss the late nights and the
fearlessness of being 22, 23, 24.
i miss a lot of things that were
impermanent milestones,
and i left them behind
when the  time came.
so when you ask if i miss you,
the answer is yes,
in the same kneejerk
way you miss all the things that
once mattered.

letting go is an art form,
untangling from the fears
and the what ifs -
i realize they do not just
vanish, and therein lies
the art.

salt in the wound
twenty seven and
still unsettled in a

permanent detachment,
the only kind of
permanence

i've laid hands on,
an emptiness that
never fills -

salt in the wound
still here, still here.
unsettled.

if i had a portrait
like dorian gray's
i wonder what it
would look like.

i do not look like
my world has shattered
overnight more times
than i can count

and while my scars have faded
quite substantially with time,

they'd probably bleed
through the portrait -

the blood running down my wrists
the blood running down my thighs.

i hope it burns
i hope you choke
on every word
i hope it haunts you
i hope it hurts

i hope you get everything you deserve.

it all goes back to that one
little moment
the pill in my hand
the table underneath
my elbows
the floor underneath
my feet.

i wish i would have given it back.
i wish i would have said no.
i wish i would have listened to
that terrified little voice in the back
of my head that this would be too
much.

i swallowed it.
let ecstasy swallow my life.
it's been years now
and i still feel like
i never really got it back.