it burned your throat when you drank bleach to **** the butterflies that he left living in your stomach.

and your face went red when they turned to moths instead, so you took a trip to the beach to try and immerse the flame that kept them attracted to you.

you laid your head under the water and took a deep breath.

deep sea diving always sounded scary but this time it sounded satisfying, because you knew he must have been somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

the further you went down, the closer you felt to seeing him again.

hands wrapped around your ankles and you started rising up like smoke.

when the lifeguard emptied the water that was held hostage in your lungs, it felt like fire,

and you thought God, the moths will never leave me now.

but the situation felt comfortable, a twisted kind of familiar.

because you remember the day he apologized to you for making you feel like you were drowning.

and you remember the day he left and how it felt like a flash flood.

every part of you was overflowing, but the water wasn't the only blue thing that made you short of breath.

there was a time your lungs gave up simply from looking into his bright blue eyes.

but when the only thing that's bright to you anymore is the top of every matchstick you've struck on your skin just to keep his memory alive, run them under the faucet.

after staring out the kitchen window, realize that he was never in love with you.

because if he was, he wouldn't have been the reason that you drained yourself of all of this color.

there's not much left of him here anymore.

except for his hoodie that laid on the floor while you laid awake in bed.

the moths ate so many holes through the covers that you tossed and turned with chills.

you spent that whole night wondering what would happen if you died, but without you there would be nothing left of him and you know that.

he left so many pieces of himself behind when he broke you that you mixed them all together in the clean up.

you don't feel comfortable in your own skin because not all of it is yours.

you break due to love, he breaks due to anger, you two do not mix.

he's hot air, you're cold, and together you form a tornado.

don't you see that attempting to fix him is destroying everything else in the process?

he's the reason you don't trust anyone but God you trust him with your life.

it's so stupid to try and fix the person who broke you.

he's the entire reason you're writing this poem.

you're telling yourself that he'll never come back but you've been setting a table for two for months.

and you light the candles.

and the moths flutter.