I have to cease.
It's not that my love has ceased.
It's just that the tenderness in my chest isn't uncut anymore
and I keep cutting the scraps loose far and wide
creating an eyesore for others to sterilize.

This has to cease
because I've put my spirit on trial
and it wound up at its breaking point.
I can't share this world with you
while her shadow lingers, panting on your collar.

I know you can't cease.
I know you can't slay a phantom.
I know that you don't fancy bruising her haunting spirit.

I wish you didn't want to bruise my spirit.
But there's an echelon of interest that I never dominated.

But it possesses all the arena that is my cranium
and the rest is made up of intoxicated words I'll never obliterate.

I know I'm not your Valentine.
But hearts were never a joyous emblem for me anyway.

So I'll leave phantoms of my presence all over your life
in hopes that you'll delete a single blushing gummy letter
written by a ghost years ago.