It's like a leech
It clings to every memory I own, it infiltrates all my senses

I see his face everywhere in the faces of strangers

I hear his final words to me through the sigh he gave as I told him I wished we could have worked, that he should keep me in mind should he change his

I smell him every time I sit at my piano and think of the times we spent poring over Faure and wishing the recital were over

I touch him every time the white keys glide under my skin and the black ones poke my fingers into submission

I taste him on the tip of my tongue as I try in vain to forget the past

He was my train wreck and thinking of him makes me hate myself, what he hated, what he told me he wanted and then told me he would never want in a million years.

So I pushed him to the back of my head,
But his afterlove
Just clings
To my heart
Instead.