this is not love
but a fetishisation of
drowning and dying breaths

don’t try and tell me this is how it should feel
that the lack of blood on your hands
somehow makes you innocent
you are implicated through the slashes on my heart,
love, there is no getting around the fact that you wielded a knife
and recklessly stabbed at me

to say that you loved me
is to say you fell in love with how bloodied you left me
don’t misunderstand,
i am not the pain you embedded within me
love is much too fragile for you to understand
or even recognise
and if there was ever any trace of love between us
that would let you blink for a second
and touch me softly
you murdered that

the distance remains, and the empty space helped me see
you are twisted and dark, love,
and i could never fall in love with you
or even look at you

don’t try and tell me i’m broken
i am, but not because i love you
you arranged the pieces of my heart
into ugly slurs that made me feel so worthless
how could you love me, or even pretend you did?

this is not love,
but the residue of the unhealthiest of attachments;
calling you love is kind and caring
and you deserve neither, love.