It’s not that hard to explain there’s me and then there’s my body (neither one matters to you) there’s my mouth and then there’s my heart rate there’s your eyes and then there’s your poetry (I haven’t seen either one in a long time) you’ve never been that hard to understand I know you’d love to think you are and the rules are complicated but they don’t change (it’s okay though most people are like that some are just better at lying) I met you as a child I left you something different I met you and you rolled the dice (it wasn’t until you were older that we learned to play the game) I left you when I realized there would be no winner I met you a child and left you an animal (and there’s nothing I can say to make up for that) it’s not that hard to say I’m sorry I’ve been saying it for years it’s reflex it’s a tic and to you every apology was a suicide note a notice of my progressive apoptosis (it’s not your fault it’s not that hard to say I miss you) and for you I weighted dice I counted cards I hid aces up my sleeves and gave you my jacket and for you I weighted words I counted stars just to prove I couldn’t I hid galaxies in my mouth just to prove I could (it’s not your fault even though you asked me to) I have been walking in circles on frozen floors punching through windows cutting up old love notes and paper snowflakes you have been painting on cardboard walls (my heart has grown out of yours and there is nothing I can say to escape that) I have been outside pounding on your windows you have been boarding them up with lines about how I was so close and should just keep trying (you kept saying they were paper but you lied) I have been doing my makeup like yours and drawing on my skin like you draw on your walls you have been coloring over me (there are other things breathing in your walls with me and we are the heartbeat of the scenery the god of the machine) I have spent years backtracking to your door I have spent years detaching from my floor it was a picture you painted with your eyes closed and we thought it was beautiful it was a picture you painted of that void space that existential wasteland behind our eyes and I thought it was real (and there’s nothing I can say to make up for that) I have spent years beating against brick walls until my hands bled my picture has become abstract it’s like I’m imprisoned inches off the ground my consciousness got lost in your blood spattered sky I have spent years beating against brick walls until my hands broke you told me to lift my feet up off the ground so I dragged them to the edge of a cliff I have spent years beating against brick walls and it has been years since I could touch anything at all you saw the bones of my cut fingers and said they were beautiful I will never pretend that wasn’t my fault (and there’s nothing I can say to explain that) I have been clawing at my face so you will call me beautiful I cannot live anymore in this rotting skin I think I’m ******* bleeding I think I’m ******* toxic (I have heard you say the same thing before and I’ll never know whether you meant it) I wiped blood from your face with my spit but you wouldn’t risk my infection there was a kind of balance in the way you held me on your fingertips but I have grown too heavy because I was too much in myself to float off the ground with you and too much in love to let go (I am trying so hard not to be in love with this anymore) I swear to myself that the feeling of this earth on my hands means more to me than you do I swear to you that in your existential rapture I will not purge myself of your sins (my exodus did not come soon enough and there’s nothing I can say to escape that) I will breathe the prophesized sickness of this world but I will not breathe the sickness out of you never again will I look down at my footprints and wonder who they belong to it’s not that hard to remember there was me and then there was my body maybe they used to matter to you but neither one belonged to me (and there’s nothing I can say to make up for that there’s nothing I can say to get them back)