I do believe,
without intention,
that I have somehow,
in some way,
become undeniably,
enchantingly,
horrendously,
addicted to you.

I don’t miss you as much as I should.
Or maybe I still miss you too much.
I never understood grief very well.
I was always told I grieve too long,
the “stages are too long and you get stuck”.
Ten years in October
and I never reached acceptance.
I guess I did get stuck.
I blew right past bargaining,
I wasn’t wasting time.
Straight through to anger,
before settling down into pure, unadulterated grief.

I miss you.

And when I don’t miss you enough,
I force myself to miss you harder.
Because no one speaks about you anymore.
And I can’t tell your story,
Because I got stuck in the stages,
lost swirling in the catacombs,
a pan’s labyrinth of nostalgia.

Sometimes,
I wonder what you would think of me.
In the world you said you couldn’t fit into anymore,
because there was no space
because you loved me in all the ways that I couldn’t love you,
all the ways I learned to love you, too late.

I wonder if you would be proud of me for walking away,
or staying so long…
I wonder what you’d say to me when I told you stories of how I never quite got it right.

I think you’d tell me to write more.
I think you’d tell me to love less,
because you never thought anyone was worthy.

I hope we would still yell at the top of our lungs when we were angry,
but never forget an “I love you.”

I can’t hear your voice as clearly as I used to.
But when I close my eyes tightly,
I can still make out how you looked at me,
All those nights on your front steps,
under the stars,
When we truly believed we’d never have to miss each other at all.

Remember that time I read you poems in the dark until 2am?
and the way you used to hold my hand until you fell asleep
...You know I hate when you do this.
Can we have an actual conversation, please?
Oh, right. Because I’m always the bad guy.
Would you just listen?
I love you.
What about that time we made love in your truck?
There is something worth saving here.
What about all the nights we spent laughing until we cried?
Yeah, well you’re never willing to try, anymore.
I’m not crazy for asking if there’s someone else.
You’ve always said this would never work.
I’m ******* trying, here...
You’re tired of all of this?!
Yeah, me too.
No... *******...
Babe, please... people fight...
Don’t tell me it’s not me.
It’s not over. It doesn’t have to be over.
Let’s give this a real chance.
Fine, ******* go then.

Wait..

I gave you
everything that I had.

What the **** did you think
would happen to me?

I have this recurring dream where I’m running.
Running and running.
Full speed,
sprinting towards everything
and nothing at all.
And I don’t know
what I’m running from,
or running to.
I don’t know where I am,
There’s no history of what I’ve done.
In this place I know nothing,
and I am nothing.
I just know that I have to keep running.
Because there’s a pounding in my chest,
and my feet are aching to keep moving
and there is this subtle
but paralyzing fear
that if I stop running,
only for a moment,
if I stop running,
if I can place where I am
if I can remember who I am,
if I stop for one single moment,
I know that I will die.
So I run.
In some versions,
tears stream down my face
blurring into the lights and sounds.
In other versions,
I am laughing with intoxicating bliss,
like some animal that has been kept
locked away,
only to discover that there is an entire world
outside the iron walls of everything
I knew before.
Sometimes,
I keep looking behind me,
like I’m waiting for something to catch up to me.
Sometimes I look nowhere but ahead,
to the horizon,
the rising moon,
never-ending ground.
Sometimes there is pavement,
and street lights melting together,
as if the lens of my consciousness has been left open,
sometimes I can’t see at all,
I only hear my own breath,
the rhythmic pounding of my soul hitting the pavement.
But always,
I am running.

Long ago when Eden masqueraded itself as a paradise
Back when the tree of life bloomed with the sins of fallen angels
And Eve picked the apple that the snake had offered her
And once the juice trickled down her lips
So the snake laughed and writhed with glee
At the idea that woman had condemned us all
With her feminine wiles
And selfish urges.
Back when god scoffed at his muddled creation
For being weak enough
To take temptation by its supple fruit
****** us all
She did.
By being human.
How could woman be so stupid?
How could woman be so vile?
Did she not understand what she was doing
Did she not understand what she was setting into motion.
That all of this
Could one day be her fault
For being hungry
For being human.
Did she not understand that the fruit
Was poisoned.
Wasn’t it?
Woman be ******.
For isn’t it your fault.
It must be.
That the monstrous ways of men were born.