Everything aches with a pain it never has before, but it's been three weeks, and I need to start picking myself up and putting my pieces back together. Yet every time I try to reassemble myself, I find that a piece of me is still attached to you, and no matter how hard I pull I can't detach it. So I'm stuck in a pile of what I used to be and I can't speak or think or move, and I'm struck with the sense that I truly did lose my other half, for it seems impossible for me to be me without somehow having you, too.

Take my heart and pin it up in your collection with all the others
Take my secrets and bottle them up to place on your shelf
Take my kisses and dissect each one until you have someone else's to pull apart
Take my "I love you's" and label them by the meaning behind each one
And when you're done, will I disappear from your memory?
Will I blend in with every past love, every past girl, every past ****?
Just another jar in your closet to look at once or twice a year.
I'll be gathering dust in your mind while you're staging an orchestra in mine.
But that's how love works, isn't it?
It doesn't split down the middle, it splits in shards and you're left gathering pieces like a child under a piñata. And whoever ends up with more candy ends up with more pain.
So I sit here mourning a boy who let me go five minutes after I became "past" to him.
Gathering dust.

I took a lot of medication
I've been sick since you left me
And now I'm feeling sad again
See, I went to this party
But even with the music blaring
And people all around me
I can't deny that I still feel
Really ******* lonely
This couple right beside me
Is going pretty hard
I remember when we were them
Before we had these scars
They're hotboxing the bathroom
The whole place reeks of ****
But I don't want to get messed up
I cling to sanity
I really ******* miss you
My heart is screaming loudly
And I wonder where you are right now
And if you're thinking of me
The couple right beside me
Has left now, holding hands
They're ******* in the bathroom
But they left their beer cans
I know I took a lot of pills
I know this can't be good
But ever since you left
Now one's understood
The pain I'm feeling deep inside
They all tell me "he was lame"
But truly you were perfect
No one else could be the same
I'm scared of where you are
What you're doing, and with who
I know you have no trouble
Finding girls to sleep with you
And maybe it's that thought
That finally sends me off the cliff
Or the couple in the bathroom
Who make me think "what if?"
What if we had made it?
Could that have been our life?
You mentioned a couple of times
That you could see me as your wife
But now it's all in ruins
Shards of us lay at my feet
I know I failed you
So now it's time to fail me
I don't know what I'm thinking
Suddenly I'm grabbing beers
I keep on chugging down and down
And then I hear the cheers
They don't know what I'm doing
They think it's all a game
They don't know that I hate beer
They don't even know my name
Everyone is watching
As I down another can
They don't realize that's it's over
My final race has been ran
I know I haven't got much time
Before the medicine reacts
And maybe I will die tonight
I may just hit my max
Yet that doesn't bother me
None of it really does
I stopped caring long ago
About what is and was
I hope that you sleep well
And if my life is ending
Don't think you could've helped me-
My heart was way past mending

Waking up is the hardest part
Black and too-early morning
Stinging eyes
Sinking stomach
When you're asleep
You can't feel the pain
And my mind spins dreams into
Constellations
That glimmer with your memory
But then I wake up
Sheen with sweat
And anger and desperation and a black hole behind my eyes
And I wish I could take a pill
For memories
Because my body physically aches with the crushing weight of a thousand memories
I remember waking up with you
Waking up was the best part
Because we had a tree-carved love
And you kept me in the tattoo on your wrist
And I kept you on the chain that hung from my neck
But now I throw up in the middle of the night
Or awake sobbing heavy tears
While you're miles away
Probably sleeping beside another girl
Stealing her breath as she sleeps so peacefully
Just as you stole my sanity.

She kissed me
not because
she wanted to
but because
she could.

We fell in
love.
Not because
we could
but because
we wanted to.

We made
mistakes.
Not because
we wanted to
but because
we could.

We thought
we were
perfect.
Not because
we could
but because
we wanted to.

I vomited in
the bathroom
of a
Baltimore
7-11
because
sometimes
you cannot
hold it in
much
longer.

Her hands shook
as she held her
mirror
because
sometimes
your reflection
can only
tell you
so much.

My body shook.
Her body stiff.
And when
the bodies
move
the hearts
stop.

She lied some.
I drank words.
The veins
in hands
are maps
to imagined
consciousness.

Really,
it's just
a
*******
*****.

Music to
my ears.
Nervousness
between
blinks.
Noise to
my brain.

She said,
"I love you"
not because
she wanted to
but because
she could.

I said,
"I love you, too,"
not because
I could
but because
I wanted to.

I miss you like a burning ache in the back of my mind
And a constant crushing weight on my chest
And every time I try to take a breath, it aches and I struggle to inhale
Knowing that I will never again breathe into your mouth
Even though "that's really ******* hot please do that again."
And I've used my inhaler 68 times since you started to disappear
I know because there is a small black dial on the side that counts how many puffs I have left
The number keeps creeping closer and closer to zero.
And I am struck with the need to see it hit zero and the fear of what will happen when it does.
Already I am turning greyer and greyer everyday
My eyes and hair dripping off the brown they've worn all my life
And I remember how you turned grey and then white and then suddenly you were gone
And I wonder if the same will happen to me
In reality, my inhaler is all I can grip to
Artificial air.
You stole the real air right out of my lungs when you left me on the cold ground that night.
And I remember that your hands disappeared first, shedding the light shade of white your body had recently adopted.
And I remember crying because my hands loved the way they felt wrapped in yours.
And days go by that feel like hours, the clock melting off the wall.
But with you 5pm was suddenly midnight in a matter of a few needy kisses and deep conversations.
And maybe that's why it hurts so bad.
"Because it was real"
Which is from the movie we saw
The night I first noticed your colors were dimming.