part I:

remember when the walls are
bleeding from the way he says "i love you"
so gently
it feels like his hands
are loading the gun as he distracts you with his lips,
but you close your eyes
and don't move.
the barrel presses to your nape.
he doesn't
shoot.
remember when the floors are
telling you to stand up,
stand up
your knees are hurting but you are debris at his feet
and he doesn't step on you.
chapter one
is when he shoves you against the wall and you forget to breathe.
chapter two,
he doesn't kiss you.
remember when he opens the door after
not coming home for two months and tells you not to
wait for him anymore, but you do
and he starts to come home
everyday
for a week.
you haven't seen him
since.
chapter ten is when you take your things
and leave your ring
on his coffee machine.
epilogue is when you come back
and fall asleep
in his unmade bed.
the ring is where you've left it four years ago.

part II:**

we talk about abandonment like
secondhand sweaters in a thrift store,
thinking about
someone else's arms and
someone else's lips against your neck.
pay for it,
leave.
the moments you spend curled
up in bed and picking at the loose threads
of what another persons has
decided to move on from, you are wondering
what it means to finally let go.
every eighteen days
you return to his front door and
try to remember
how it looked like nearly
three weeks ago
but everything seems the same.
you walk right past again without saying "hello"
and you can see him
through the kitchen window brewing coffee
the way he always does at
7 in the evening.
i talk about abandonment in the
form of repetitive mistakes
but recently i've realized that
it wasn't deja vu.
everything was just me.
it hadn't been fate
at all.