The thing about love
is that it punches holes in you.
That, you see, is why
it is infinitely more difficult
to truly love
than to simply like.

I myself tend to love
the wrong kinds of people.
I have been punched through
as if I were made for it,
and yet I never seem to hit
hard enough to leave
my own impressions.
Or perhaps it is not that
I have been punched through
at all, but rather that
when you burst
into a thousand pieces
the shrapnel pierced my heart.

I am a mess of it;
you live in the cavity of
my chest, nestled away in
the space between my ribs.
It is a miracle that my lungs
still operate, given how much
of you sleeps in their cradle.

Someone please take
these frayed edges and tie them
to at least give off a semblance
of wholeness.

(The reality is that I have
never been whole,
and you certainly didn't help.)

you,
breaking open hollow fragments
of the truths I trusted you with.
I can hear the plinking
of broken glass and promises,
pattering as if the rain
has become some sort of
fractured heartbeat.
they are small,
but they crack me upon impact
and you laugh when each echo
shatters my insides.

how can you not see
that I am trying to hide my face
for a *reason?
I do not want to admit that these
are tears,
and I do not want to pretend
that they aren't.
I just want you to notice,
to stop destroying everything
I gave to you
just long enough for me to breathe.
I need to breathe.

I need air, even if I don't want it.

This is fine, right here.

I will curl into myself
(savor my own warmth, for once)
and let go of my own fingertips.