i've learned a lot of things in the last ten years
and one of those things
is that a 9 1/2 years isn't long enough
to stitch back together a wound
made of broken trust
                                       and lust
it's just...

festering.
still.

there is salt on my lips to this day
making the fragile skin crack and bleed
blood is also salty, you know.

they were wrong about bloodletting.
all these years and the poison you left behind still sits
heavy in my veins.

do you know that i still think about those roses on my windshield?
or that rough kiss in the elevator?
or the way you grabbed my arm, firmly,
because you knew i didn't want it.

the fear,
sweeping my nervous system like frost across a window,
as i walked out to my car at night
and found evidence that someone else had been there.
quickly locking my doors behind me and trying not to cry
more salt.
too much salt.
i need to rid myself of all this ******* salt.

you salted the earth behind you.
it wasn't consecration.
it was devastation,
designed to prevent anything beautiful from growing in this place.

it worked, for a while.

but i don't flinch when he kisses me anymore.
and i spent 7 years turning roses into something beautiful
for somebody else
so they could stop being a reminder of my own
hell.

so the wound isn't fully healed, this is true.
but less and less do i think of you.

they say the only cure for salted earth is time.
3-10 years to be exact.
i'll be rid of you soon.