Obsidian ink courses through my veins,
antiquated insults tattooing my tissue,
repressed memories parasitizing my skin;
these open wounds have festered for too long,
rotten pus oozing from within. Emotional apathy
is something I yearn for, the desire to simply forget
the love I once convinced myself I held for you.

Several attempts have been made
to erase the blemishes on my persona;
anxiety, self-consciousness, suicidal tendencies
have adorned the walls of my healing,
a journey I've embarked on with no light
to lead the way. I've tried and failed,
prided and embarrassed myself,  
built identities I wished I had,
convincing myself they were endemic to me.

I've traversed the landscapes of undulating hills
dotting the horizon of nostalgic optimism,
isolated myself away from civilization,
lost the friends who prevented my downfall,
forgotten the names of those who wished to save me
from my own destructive tendencies, eventual crumbling.

I've thrown a blanket over my tumbling life,
donned a mask of confident supremacy
as to not humiliate myself for yet another time.
I've viewed myself as a pathetic usurper
of the throne of worthiness, too weak
to wear the crown of deserved exuberance,
unaware of the weight my trauma exuded
onto the entirety of my faltering body and mind.

A ritual of morning nausea riddles my routine,
throbbing headaches stapled into my cerebrum,
****** shakes and dripping tears from the words
of others who remind me so starkly of you. I've laid
hands on others who wish to view me as you did,
flashes of vibrant red obscuring the clarity of my view,
a vacant disguise devoid of authenticity,
displaced by a sense of dysphoric delusion.

I wish to redact the love I almost died for,
a valiant knight falling in the line of battle,
unaware of the forgotten valor soon to follow.
As I awake to the next day, I hold onto a new
sense of gratitude, one that has never seemed
to arise in my lightest of days. It is difficult
for me to search in the future, uncertain whether
my two feet will be implanted into the dirt
at any given time. I have lived in a torturous
temptation of the anger I harbor deep within.

Purple inflammation underneath my eyes
has become a fundamental aspect of my
everyday appearance; exhaustion plagues
my daily experiences, and I can feel
myself slowly losing life at the hands
of you – yes, I do resent you.

I do. I do. I do.

This page, stained with the blood
of every dream you disemboweled,
crumbles underneath the weight
each word carries from the past;
my brain is home to a nest of hornets,
eager to pounce on perceived threats
often falsified in the face of distress.

I should release the restraints of the past,
drop the reins of the reign you once held
over the facets of my life, every nook
storing my deepest fears from the light
of day, the ones I hoped would never
turn true, only to find them arisen
as prophetical visions of our destiny.

This torture has endured for too long,
and the forgiveness I find myself
searching for continues to evade
my mindful cognizance. I’ve tried
to accept the faults parried onto me,
yet closure’s absence acts as an obstacle
preventing me from pardoning your sins.

This is the death of what I’ve held for too long,
a eulogy for the remnants of our shredded portrait,
its parchment slowly decomposing, pieces wafting
away in the breeze of the bay, reminiscent of memories
rusted with double-edged silence, slices of past lives
stitched together with the woven thread of trauma.
Page upon page stapled together, tangible reminders
of declassified documents detailing the secrets of us;
stylistic differences in poetical works may inhibit
the comprehension of such dense material, yet the
manuscript of my emptiness can only be conveyed
through such solidity. I approach the day when
my commentary begins to dissipate, fading into
a personification of demonstrative apathy. I wave
goodbye to the eagles, release my grip on Andrews
and our bench propped against our lake’s shoreline,
close my eyes and envision the pink skies of Manhattan
without your silhouette blocking the view, taste the ramen
spilt onto the grasses of Central Park, inhale the aroma
of midnight amateurs huddled over a pan of pasta. Yes,
this is the death of what I’ve held for too long.