pack up the room of pulsating anxiety.
these walls that are seeped with your hatred will bleed into your delicate spiderweb nightmares no longer, baby.

pack up your clothes, books, shoes, hundreds of papers marked with ideas of how your mind operates
pack up your soiled, tired sheets
covered in mascara and aching disappointment
that hatred that lies on everything like a film of dust
pack it up,
put it away.

and as you fold and pile and scrape, honey
forgive yourself.
forgive the objects.
lay the knife in a box and apologize for the way you used it
whisper sweet nothings to the underwear he removed from you in his bed
tell them it will be ok.
tell them that you won't let him touch them anymore
that you won't let him touch you anymore
that he will not be able to reach you anymore
that all the filmy hatred that left your pores and entered into everything that makes up who you are for an entire ******* year
WILL BE BRUSHED OFF.
WILL BE LEFT BEHIND
IN THIS ROOM OF CRUSHED BONES AND RANCID INSIDES

that you...
you are going to a better place.
you are putting to death the you that lived in this room
that cried in this room
that died in this room
stake it through the heart
cut off the head so it cannot return
mutilate the frightening, hideous, trembling manifestation of yourself that labored in the night
in this
room


in going home for the summer,
return home in your mind.
find that place again, baby.
find it and make a home there.
remove him from you like the parasite that he is.
go home for the summer.

go
home.