I’d rather know my head was aching from
***** than all the reasons you left me. That my
throat was burning from polluting my lungs
instead of crying out your name. I’d
rather believe that the tears
staining my pillow at night were caused by
forcing myself to bend over the toilet bowl than
by longing to feel you wrapped around
me as I lie incapable of sleep. That the reason
dreams escape me is starvation and
not a restless longing. I wish I could
fool myself into believing I’m shaking from
nervousness all day instead of from
the absence of your eyes.

I keep tricking myself into thinking I weep
from pain and not from love, but
every razor line is nothing to knowing that
love was not enough in the end. That I
held everything in my hand and let
it slip away, as the days now fall from me because
you are gone. If only I could blame
hunger for the ravenous cries of my soul.
If only I could convince myself solely
malnutrition and winter’s chill raise goosebumps
on my skin.

These partial truths make it easier
to forget I am so consumed by a desire
and desperation that will never be satiated. I
will never again feel whole. And I can
let smoke fill my mouth until I almost forget
the taste of you, but it will never
replace you. I can’t even say I started
drinking when I met you, or that I wasn’t
already in the grips of sweet demons. But
losing you sure made it easier to let them
dig their claws into my heart, made it
easier to turn my soul into ash and parade myself
as some poor degenerate being, if only
to forget how empty I am now. It sure
as hell made it more necessary.