THE WORST PART OF A BREAK-UP
by Michelle Awad
is not the screaming,
not the gut-clenching
holding/un-holding,
fighting
back tears, it’s not the
I can’t do this anymores, or
this isn’t workings, not the
storming out, or the
returning
house keys, or
the picking up your
things,
you left them here,
they’re
in a box on the porch
if you want them back, or I
can give them to Goodwill.
Either way, you have a
week.
The worst part
of a break-up
is
much bigger
much quieter
much later
it’s
that I can’t find
a **** picture
of myself that isn’t
a picture of you,
it’s
deleting them,
it’s
selling those
concert tickets,
it’s unremembering,
phone numbers,
and birthdays, and what
you’d find funny, it’s
wanting to tell you,
it's
the ritual,
the cleansing,
the
things that we
do,
the things that we
have
to do,
to pretend
that
we’re not actually
breaking.3
Mar 28, 2020
Mar 28, 2020 at 3:14 PM UTC
THE WORST PART OF A BREAK-UP
by Michelle Awad
is not the screaming,
not the gut-clenching
holding/un-holding,
fighting
back tears, it’s not the
I can’t do this anymores, or
this isn’t workings, not the
storming out, or the
returning
house keys, or
the picking up your
things,
you left them here,
they’re
in a box on the porch
if you want them back, or I
can give them to Goodwill.
Either way, you have a
week.
The worst part
of a break-up
is
much bigger
much quieter
much later
it’s
that I can’t find
a **** picture
of myself that isn’t
a picture of you,
it’s
deleting them,
it’s
selling those
concert tickets,
it’s unremembering,
phone numbers,
and birthdays, and what
you’d find funny, it’s
wanting to tell you,
it's
the ritual,
the cleansing,
the
things that we
do,
the things that we
have
to do,
to pretend
that
we’re not actually
breaking.3