When you are home alone sobbing on another Friday night, do not call her and ask her to come back,
you know good and well her answer.
Do not reach across your empty bed to feel if she is still there,
when you know you have carved the date she left into your bedpost,
and now she is hours away wrapping herself like ivy
around a porcelain column, twisted between warm limbs and bedsheets
while you are curled next to your own grief
and tear soaked pillows that still
smell of her shampoo.
Do not make the same mistakes you made this time.