I sat across from a woman with candle smoke in her hair
and eyes like a church at Midnight
She shuffled the universe with soft, ruined hands
and I swear every card knew your name
I told her I came because the signs won't leave me alone
They scratch at my ribs
They crawl through my dreams
They spell you out in flickering neon, in dying prayers
She laid the cards like a funeral
Slow and holy
She says you know you hurt me
It hurts you just the same
a tear slides down my cheek
and the last five minutes I ever got of you
rise up in my throat like a ghost
I was never mad
I was just abandoned
if you knew how fast I forgave you
you would weep shame
I don't believe it wasn't real for you
If it was nothing
your absence would not feel this loud
your silence would not bruise
The way that it does
You liked me at least once, didn't you?
The woman says we have a soul tie
a black flame buried in our bones
We both carry it like a curse
you can feel it too
that's why you cannot sleep
that's why we both can taste the smoke
Last night grief came to me like a tide
All I could think about was you
I was happy before
now even my joy reeks of death
The woman keeps turning the cards
like she's peeling skin from the future
She says *I see him dreaming of you
I see him looking back*
and I wanted to scream
because I never stopped
I feel you
I dream of you
I hear you in the dead hours of the morning
sometimes I still speak to you
like you are buried beneath my bed
I don't know if this is the beginning of the end
or just another haunting
But I keep manifesting you every night
like a girl praying to a False God
Just one last time
I will be good, I swear
I will say I missed you, I confess
I will ask how your days have been, I promise
I will lay my heart down
on a cold silver altar
and let you take it
Break it again
that is fine
for you to be my ruin
my eternal damnation
is the only God
I have ever believed in