I think I started writing you away before you were gone
I wanted to make sure I could let you go before I did
I wanted to feel numb when I pushed you away
so I wrote
I put you on pages,
typed chapter titles for every single time you looked at me
I wrote until you were a novel,
read you until you were no longer novel,
and put you on a shelf so I could start waiting to forget about you,
a memory trapped in unused synapses

and after I shut your final chapter
but before your pages had started to collect dust,
I realized what I had done
See, I had taken each word from within me,
harvested my heartstrings, plucking them and mixing them to make ink,
The pieces of you I kept in my heart
sat as words on a page, aging
while my heart, once strong, felt too empty
and cavernous to beat under the weight of the sigh pinning down my chest

In all of my preparing
I had forgotten that I am human

I forgot feelings aren't like a fountain
there's no faucet you can turn off to keep them from
running through your mind
no way to stop them from flowing
back through your mouth when you try to
swallow them, mixed with ***, in your best friend's basement,
days after you forgot that you can't turn off a rainstorm
you can try to catch the raindrops in a bucket
but the bucket you'll need is big enough to drown in
you can try to hold out an umbrella
but if the wind is hard enough
you're still going to end up cold and dripping,
tearstained and shivering
waiting until the sun comes out

I forgot that I can't control the weather,
or anything other than myself for that matter
The end of a storm doesn't equate to the appearance of a rainbow

I realized that just because my fingers twisted around yours until
they melted together doesn't mean you'll forgive me
and that you left tattoos on me that only time will fade
and we're both going to be mad
I found out that
every song that ever reminded me of you doesn't cease to exist
I have to re-watch movies because they're different now, somehow,
and just because my hair is probably still all over your clothes
and I talked to you every day
and you gave me months of memories
and thinking about you is gut-wrenching
doesn't mean that I won't spend days praying for patience
and hoping for healing because
***** it, letting you go doesn't mean I don't miss you