ask me to rate my pain on a scale of 1 to 10,
   and i'll give you a crippling number.
  an above-10 number.

ask me to look the boy who no longer loves me in the eye
and i'll shy away. i'll avert my own eyes.
i will walk by him as if we are strangers,
       and i will feel the seams on my heart pop open,
one by one.

ask me if i feel like breaking
   and hurting.
ask me about the emptiness in my chest
        and the grey behind my eyes. ask me if it hurts my heart to beat.
    ask me if my blood is still in the habit of quickening when he's close.
ask me if i regret anything,
and i'll tell you that i regret everything.

      ask me if i love him
      and ask me if i want him.
           for those, i won't have an answer.
           only silence. only thought.

ask me if parts of me hate him,
  and i'll tell you about the low burning in my belly,
         the hating-blaming-burning
and the ******-up way it makes me feel.

ask me if i miss him.
i'll tell you that i am hollow.
i'll tell you that my whole body, my whole heart, is nothing but missing him.
i'll tell you i might just blow away
   without his love to anchor me.
i'll tell you that i feel absolutely empty

and it will be the truth.

i drink until my chest holds an alcohol-emptiness.
the pain is hollow,
the joy is hollow,
the pain is gone.

i smoke until the alcohol-emptiness is as full as it can be.
i fill it and i fill it and i fill it,
i feel it and i feel it and i feel it,
and it's the kind of feeling that doesn't make you feel at all.

the exhalation, it clears more than just smoke,
and it empties more than my lungs.

just now my heart gave two great
and heaving beats
that shuddered my whole chest.
i know this is just a symptom
of the cardiac quirk i inherited from my mother
but it felt to me like some sort of physical closure.
for a moment after it happened
my chest didn't have that emptiness anymore.
my body is healing my nonbody.
that's what it felt like.
for a second, anyway.

i've been in my bed, which will always be the bed,
                     as in, the bed,
      where we spent the last of our virginities
in the push of hips and hands and two-note gasps,
and i've been thinking.

i've been thinking of
     all the firsts i gave you and
         all the things you meant to me
and how
  you will always be the boy who
     sat on a table and sang me my favorite song in front of everyone and
          didn't give a **** that his guitar was out of tune.
now that
is a ******* gesture.

i've been thinking that i need to learn to look you in the eye again.

i've been thinking of how
   all i've done for the past three weeks is walk away from you.
       and how just because you walked away from me first
                                        in the biggest way possible,
                                                     that isn't fair.
you deserve more than that
    for how hard you've tried.
i've been thinking that i haven't let myself see that very well.

i've been thinking of how
  right now
    i'm beginning to feel like i could talk to you, and make myself stay,
          and look you in the eye, and not hurt,
or like i could never talk to you again, and still be okay.
i've been thinking that that's a start
                 to something friendship-shaped and okay.

i've been thinking that maybe i'll take a break from you for awhile,
      maybe patch up the sore places in my heart, talk to some new people.
   learn some things, you know?

i've been thinking that maybe i'll talk to you tonight,
      and for the first time i won't be bitter. there will not be underlying pain in my words.
there will be no accusations. no corners to back you into. no hidden hatred. no left-over love.
     there will be just you. and just me. and we'll be fine, one of these days. i'll be fine.

i've been thinking that that can start
    as soon as i let it.

i'm sorry that things were easy
until i made them hard.

  i'm sorry i stayed mad so long when we would fight.
i'm sorry that i got jealous of your friends
    and that i didn't say "i love you" back sometimes.
i'm sorry i was so shy around strangers and you weren't.
i'm sorry i didn't try harder to make you happy.
i'm sorry i have trouble looking at you.
i'm sorry i can't talk to you.
i'm sorry that i'm starting to cut you off.

   i'm sorry we never got to make love the way i wanted to -
    properly, you know? with a bed and candles and all the time in the world.

i know you wanted that.

     i'm sorry we'll never spend the night somewhere together.
         i'm sorry we'll never be able to wear shorts in the nighttime and be somewhere outside and look up at the stars and feel the warmth of the air.
                i'm sorry we loved each other in the winter time, because it's ugly, and even at our most beautiful it was hard.

  i'm sorry you felt like you had to make things up to my parents.
    i'm sorry you never did.

i'm sorry i sometimes wouldn't tell you what was wrong.
i'm sorry i would cry when i got drunk
   and that i couldn't be alone at parties
and that i lost your jacket that one time.

          i'm sorry you fell out of love with me.
       i'm sorry for your left-over feelings that you don't know what to do with.
               i'm sorry for our rough patches and our arguments. i'm sorry if i could have done more.

i'm sorry if you feel guilty. i'm sorry if it's my fault. i'm sorry if i pushed you away.

i'm sorry if it seems like i hate you. i'm trying to let you in.
it *****, and it's hard.

i'm sorry it's taking so long.

when the wolves stop licking at my marrow then
i'd hope to find your face there -
but i'm alone there in the wood
and i'm alone here in this wood.
and you are a shadow
and i am a pain-emptied husk,
whistling and
melting into the branches and the leaves.
i am broken bones.
i am a thousand lost things.
i am breathing, i am barely,
and i am alive,
but i wouldn't know it.

maybe it's okay. i think sorrow suits me -
i sabotage happiness.
pour gasoline all over it and
kick at it and
provoke it.
i can't sit still with happiness like i can with sorrow.
it doesn't make me write or think. happiness doesn't fit my heart quite right. it never has.
i can be alone, you know.
i can be alone and i can be sad and i can take my pain in large and crippling doses
and i can sit still and let it all catch me and wash over me and rip me apart
and i can let the stitches come undone
and i can let it seep into my heart and make me feel the blackest things you can imagine.
i have that capacity.
i'm that type of person.
and in the end i can let it right back out again -
it's like breathing in that way. i've learned to manage my pain, after all these years of having it.
it's not new to me - just yours is fresher
and maybe worse than what i've had before,
but it's not a novelty.
it comes
and it goes
tide in
tide out
crippling
then fine
then crippling,
and i will sit and i will let it take me and i will feel what i'm feeling and i will think what i think and i will live with it like i've always lived with it, and i will not hurry to heal, and i will not force any sort of happiness, because people need sorrow like they need oxygen. it is something real and necessary and raw. i can feel it and still survive. i can let it in and let it back out again, and i will be fine. and i don't need you to know that. and i don't need to tell you. and i don't need anyone to worry. because this is part of what i do, and how i am, and i can control my dosage, and i can control my suffering.
it suits me.
it does.