Did you really love me, I wonder sometimes, as I browse empty shelves, and I ponder whether I meant enough to you to make you wonder if I felt the same way, to make you hungry, for the knowledge that I wanted you deeply, that I loved you oceanically,  that I saw you profoundly, and, at least for a moment, thought you were the only one for me. Sometimes I ask myself, does my picture whisper to you from the wall (or whatever box you've put it in), are there things you want to hear, like I needed you as much as blood needs a vein to travel, like when I see you I see man, like I look at you and remember why I wanted to do this in the first place?     I am wondering. Was your heart ever empty? Did I ever truly become the thing that filled you, the one you needed most in the world to talk to you? Is that gleam in your eye as dependent upon me as I am upon you, are you looking for someone else, or do your eyes always disobey like mine do, do your lips speak my name when you think of something or even just try to take your mind off the pain?     Do you need me? Because I need you to. Have you tried to replace me, tried hard, so many times, with all of yourself thrown into the effort with more vanity than that of a maze of mirrors, accidental detours all leading you to my name? In your heart, at the center of you, am I eternal. Is this all a failed pitch at loving you in the dark?     Or do I remind you of every good thing you've ever done? Of every accident that's turned out to be for the better, of every unplanned wonderful thing unleashed, but of every pain as well, of every bad thing too? Do I look like guitar strings to you? Ready for your fingers to find me and stir me and make me vibrate with musical energy?          Do you need me? Do you need me the way trees need to grow and be close to their ever-loving sun, the way a mother needs to feed a newborn a child, the way a star needs hydrogen to burn?             Do you think you've done it sometimes? Do think you've managed to forget me, to pry me out of your heart with those skillful hands, only to find out there was another secret tunnel, waiting closer, even deeper, plunging farther into the middle of what you call you, call home?
Am I there? Am I there when you think of eons away, of a place you can go to to stop thinking of anything or am I perpetually clinging to your subconscious the way a man clings to the only one he's ever loved? Or not? I need to know-  do you hate love because of me? or are you still waiting? For someone to come along and teach your heart how to break in every place you thought was strong as it sings the whole time a tune of hapless, bitter truth?
Am I an ache in you? Where I used to be a playful, mediocre spark, am I a bullet so embedded that I cannot be seen, only felt? Farther than anything before has ever pained you, deeper in than can be removed and least of all by you?

Does my name feel like something you can't quite remember, a word on the tip of your tongue, some taboo, a language barrier, hoarding you on one side, like contraband, like something illegal that shouldn't be sold but is, like something you just can't get out of your head, like a song you can't find the lyrics to, like a sentence you just can't grasp, like something your mom told you you couldn't do, not until you're older, like something preciously forbidden, like the ugly treasure at the center of the earth, like a star you can see so easily but is really so far away you come to grips with the fact that you'll never have yours on it, like a form of repossession, like empty hands that once stretched around something expensive, something that shouldn't have been yours, but broke all the rules to melt in your grasp, was too good to be true, but also too good to be false, did my name feel like a lottery ticket before and feel like the aftermath of a crime scene now, a death toll, a graveyard, an obituary, an epitaph, a black-cloaked, scythe-armed thief of all you loved? Do you weep because of me, the lonely clock in the background ticking away the seconds until you'll breathe in the sight of me even though you have to act like my absence doesn't leave you wanting, scrambling to scavenge for some afterthought, do you do silly things now like sympathizing with clocks because all they want is to press forward so that maybe someone else can be happy? Do you feel me? At the beginning, was this child's play? Did you ever dream it would get this out of hand, that we would be burnt in this way? But does some mean, masochistic, self-loathing part of you love it, too? Does it pain you to look my way but you need oxygen in your bloodstream more than you're afraid of being poisoned by little old, love-stained, toxic me?  Or am i just a foolish girl far too caught up in dreams?