you have winter in your veins
and i know at point i lived for the glacial temperatures.

i lived for the ice covering my bones
and you filling my body up to the brim with your filthy mistakes and careless words. how much do i have to pay you to hear you say those three little words again?

i keep replaying the vhs tape to our movie even though i always know how it ends.
i know how it ends, yet i watch it like a deer watches the headlights because i long for the familiarity that was once us, even though it makes me want to purge my guts out until my throat is strained and scratched.

i got drunk off your finger-crossed promises that the light at the end of the tunnel was right ahead and we needed to keep our head up. i sipped from your cup of honeyed words as if your delusional paradise could quench my thirst.

i’m slowly breaking down and distinguishing the pronunciations of safety and comfort, and they no longer sound like your name. they don’t sound like your name at all.

all you ever did was visit. you never stayed. my heart and ribcage was a home to you inconsistently inhabited whenever you feel alone and weak. but when the time came to renew the lease, you left me to sit fully furnished with your bad intentions; all the weight of your baggage that you were tired of carrying on your back was unloaded onto me. i reached my full capacity a long time ago, but you were blind to see that i was overflowing.

i would rip my lungs out if it meant it would quiet my screams that cry for you

i bite my tongue because i know my words never meant anything to you.

when i walked away from you, i left behind a universe filled ecstasy and unwanted come downs.

and i always tried to make you sure you were safe and had something to hold onto so you wouldn’t go flying away

but i guess you loved being high more than the firm grounding i put you on time and time again.

we found comfort in the chaos
but i’m no longer your lovebird
i’m ready to be set free from my cage for good.