the justification it takes to remind myself to stay away. the strength i don’t have to be alone. the attachment and dependency i held onto. the love we had. but if it was love would there be so much pain?

we took the pain so we could stay in love. but that isn’t love.

the sunset starting dimming
and i thought of you.
i thought of how you weren’t going to last forever.
i thought of how you were a fleeting moment.
but i can’t help but admire the beauty.
i can’t help but admire how perfect you were.
how perfect we were.
even if it was just for a fleeting moment.

my life is in shambles
and i’m simply bitter.
i’m happy for you
but i wish i was better.
you weren’t right for me
and i’m happy for the other,
but understand that you’re boring
and that i’m simply better.

to the aching wretch i felt when i watched you slip away like lonely drips falling from the faucet after it was turned off, almost as if i were left behind. your voice leaking like the sound each lonely drop makes when it hits the ceramic ocean. your love that was once tidal waves drifting into a small mist. we’re older now, and wiser. the metal on the left side has rusted therefore the touch of cold seems more attractive than warm.

as each drop falls through the middle, i think of all the opportunities we missed. all that we let slip through the cracks just as the water falls through into the abyss. burrowing into nothing.

i feel haunted.
but
is it you?
or am i ghost
in my own body.

–m lang

a writer’s fictitious realities
stem from their lived experiences.

so when i tell you a tale
about the monster under my bed,
let it be known that he is very alive
and very real –
living inside my head.

becoming the subject of a muse,
merely an object as the muse.
i see the discomfort that comes from
having your story told for you,
displayed without your consent.

i am the director of my own life.
i wrote you out of my script,
so leave your idealized version of me
out of yours.

the unsettlement i feel
to be spoken of so highly,
with a glaze of gold outlying my skin,
stuck to a pedestal.

i am not your trophy,
i will never be your wife!
your version of me
projected through the eyes of obsession.
infatuation.
did you see me as your possession?

and so here it lies.
here lies the irony of making you a muse,
to preach my uttermost desire
to be shed as yours.