i kissed the reflection of my own lips upon glass, and placed my hand gracefully in my hair, grooming and relaxing my restless, scathed body
i grabbed a lock of hair from the mid-section, watching the hundreds of stragglers begin and end their hopeless journey towards the tiled floor, and collected the strands between my fingers to place them in their designated abyss of uselessness

i looked back into the mirror, acknowledging my own image

today, i said

i pulled my heart off the hanger in my closet, grabbed my lungs from the shelf, and retaught my body the process of living

living, i said, you're still living, whether you like it, or not

my eyes became distracted, inverted, and regressing to a time when i couldn't look pain right in the face, and pain couldn't bare to look at me either.
my lips go cold, void of the warmth provided to them by copious amounts of unconditional self-love. my lips curl, my heart palpitates.

i always used to wonder how someone could swear they loved a person so much that it could **** them, and how it could be possible for a feeling so strong, and so real, to abruptly reach extinction, as if it never even existed in the first place
but as i finally had the strength to look pain in the face,
and pain gathered enough might to do so too,
i realized she's the one i kissed today
in fact,
she's the one i've been kissing and inviting in to recieve my love
everyday