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the summer after I graduated high school, I felt so
alone and I swore to God no one could rip that out
of my hands, but then I met you and everything I ever
thought was sacred buried itself in the sand.
You drew me mountaintop pages of bears and sunsets
and how you pictured me.
I sat in the valley and painted Starry Night on the
underside of your tongue and hoped it would make me
feel whole when you kissed me.

I swear I didn’t mean to string our
emptiness together and then go kicking and screaming
when the earth below our feet opened up
and I fell in with you. I told myself I ******* loved it.
I told myself that I was not lonely.
I promised myself this wouldn’t be
another poem apologizing for all the things
I said about you after I left.
I promised myself I would allow it to finally sink in
that you were not good for me. You were a fire
that burned every inch of my skin, and for awhile,
I swear I loved to hurt.

You lived by the ocean and when I had to leave
you gave me a conch shell, so I could always hear
the way the waves tossed and turned outside your bedroom
window. It’s been ten months and the pieces of that cracked shell
still lay on my window sill. I still hear the waves in my nightmares,
I still wear the laugh lines you gave me,
and I swear I still see your hand holding mine some days. We
were not all bad, I know this.

But we were not all good, either. I’ve been
stuck on this poem for three hours. It is time.
It is time for this poem to come out and be written,
but I cannot seem to get the words right.
Let me be blunt: I have been bitter about our train wreck
relationship and how you treated me
like an abandoned motel for a very long time now. I am tired.
I am tired of being bitter for very valid reasons.
Listen, I do not want to be your friend. I don’t ever want to
see you again, but if I can write you out of my system one
last time, then maybe my head will finally clear out all of your
****. Maybe, once and for all my heart can let out a sigh of relief
for everything I kept holding onto just so I could write this poem,
just so I could say goodbye to your ghost, still hanging around my ribs
as if I belonged to you.

Last year, on Valentine’s Day, I received your drawing in the mail
and I gushed over the thoughtfulness of it. That drawing is what eventually
made me write you the longest letter I have ever written, confessing
to you that I was broken in all the wrong ways. I asked you to
fix me. When we broke up a few months later,
I became bitter. I do not know if I was bitter because you could
not fix me or bitter over the fact that you tried to put me back
together by using your hands. You only ever knew how to use
your hands.

I took a trip to the beach last week and you
did not cross my mind once. I survived my first ice
storm and I did not think to call you to let you know I was okay.
I finally threw away your letters and your drawings
and reclaimed my body out of the landfill.
I have shed the skin you used to love and grown my hair out
six inches past the length you said I should. I have been bitter a
very long time. Tonight, I let go.