I used to beg for him to just

Stand in the doorway

I would kneel on the edge of our bed

Saying his name repeatedly as he slipped through the front door.

I found this comfort in my mania

In my starvation

He left me emaciated,

Never fully satisfied I would stumble through our apartment

Picking up inanimate objects and throwing them at the wall

Watching as they plummeted to the ground

I could feel the sigh of relief

Immeasurable to what he used to do to me

He provided the healthy appetite of rage

With each door click

Each time he slowly said my name

Licking vowels clean

The frustration his fingertips

Sprouted

His plane landing on the other side of the world

He was closest to me when he couldn’t see

The outlines of my freckles

But instead the visions  

He’d manifested in his own head

The first time he told me he loved me

I felt the bed shake as the words fell out

You could see the regret

Instantaneous, he’d forgotten that loving

Meant more than being attached to the heartbeat

meant loving my mania

Meant loving my forgiveness

Meant loving open doors

It meant feeding me until I was full,  

I believed him only when he was disappointed,

when he was too drunk to remember

The moments when he finally let his eyes wander

When he closed his lips to kiss me

Screaming through the phone

The final seconds

When his words were always

“I have to go, I have to go.”