i have nightmares about bridges burning a lot,
probably because the last one i burned killed all my elation
i still think of you everyday,
your face still brings me to my knees,
i can feel your presence in every room,
because the bullets intrude my anatomy every time you even glance at me.
even if I’m not looking back.

love has always been a hollow ribcage for me,
a burned down church,
that I always went back to to pray to,
only to be brought to my knees by it’s absence,
every single time.
all I knew about love was that it was violent,
that it made people into glass,
that it broke people like wrecking ***** against buildings
and there I was for years waiting for you to come and destroy me just like every time my father walked out that door.
but you never did.
instead you planted flowers in a garden that had been barren for years,
you ended the winter that was electrifying throughout me,
you taught me that maybe my insides weren’t so hollow,
because my heartbeat felt like more than just the sound of spoons clinking together to remind me that it was time to eat away at my own insides again.

but you’re gone,
and here I am feeding away at my insides again,
except there is nothing left for me to destroy,
my body is a graveyard.
and maybe love does turn you into glass,
because every time you speak to me,
my insides shatter like fine china in tight palms,
you made me feel like more than just a felon,
that my hands were fluent in something beyond destruction,
but when you kept asking me to come back,
i threw rocks at my own windows,
because it hurt so much to have to walk away,
i painted my own self image against your brain,
so that you wouldn’t see me as that girl that turned your body into melted honey,
you’d see me for the demons chanting in the back of my head.
and I guess it worked,
because you told me you do not love me anymore,
i wonder if you hung that painting in your bedroom.
saw it every morning and finally became too disturbed that you put me to rest.
or maybe you got tired of the girl who cried wolf,
i mean isn’t that why you left in the first place?

you told me you felt lost after i left,
and here I am, I caught your illness.
i would have done anything to try and recreate how you made me feel,
but just like any person who tries to recreate Picasso or Monet
it’s never quite as good the second time
or third,
or fourth,
sure the cigarettes burn like the way the memory of your flesh burns against my mind,
but it hurts less.
so I smoke a pack a day, swallowing the smoke like I’ve learned to swallow my pride,
but then it just reminds me of the puff of smoke I see every time you walk away from my bones.
i become a sad child again,
there is nothing more devastating than doorways for me.
but I want you to know that I woke up this morning,
and there was sunlight slipping through the cracks of the earth,
earth that has been grey for too long,
your ghost did not slip through my walls,
the sound of your voice does not crack at my sidewalks anymore.

my insides are no longer hollow.
there are daisies blooming,
in my ribcage,
where there is also a city i have built around all the bridges i have burned,
including ours,
you told me you do not want me anymore,
you have told the world of my madness,
used my painting as a flag for your newly built town.
just know that i am still standing.
you have not broken me,
she has not broken me,
i was whole before you,
and i am whole now.
do not tell me you have found crystals mining through someone else’s anatomy,
don’t tell me you’re finally healed,
remember,
it’s never quite as good the second time.
or the third,
or the fourth.

your portrait was painted in chalk on the sidewalks of my life,
but it rained yesterday,
and you are gone,
except it did not bring me to my knees,
i am not mourning it's disappearance,
i am mourning your losses,
you have settled for crystals,
and let gold slip through your fingers,
i have used your bones to build myself up,
instead of beating myself down.
they say the first cut is the deepest,
but i am done bleeding.