i miss how i used to touch him
and how he used to touch me —
how he would pause to smile between kisses
the freckles that patterned his skin and the
warm, kind, roughness of his hands,
how his room was always clean and i miss
the cross above his bed.
there’s still a picture of me on his wall, you know

'he has always wanted her,' someone said to me recently, as if i didn't know
as if i have ever known something else as fully, as deeply, as completely
as i know those words
i feel it in my stomach, my ribcage, my lungs, the tips of my toes,
the knowledge that i was not the one he wanted, not really,
and neither was the one that came after me
and the one that came before me
and any other girl in his life — because
there has only ever been one girl for him and
i have always known it.
still, hearing those words, it was like standing at the cliff’s edge
all over again
just staring