you want to go off into the military,
and i am sad that i am not enough
to make you stay.

i would give the world to an author
who could erase me for a couple of days.
just so that i could sit on the tallest mountain
drink my tea and catch up on the books i have yet to read.
just so that i could be with you once again,
and this time I'll be alone
just like i was our entire relationship

i will not be drowning my sorrows
in amber liquid
and insulting my husband
without a single glance or touch at 59
nor will i be be working two jobs at 55
for my daughter to afford UBC tuition
and maybe eat four vegetables a week.
i will be something more than this.

i was thinking back to how we got started
and realized i never told anyone the story of us.

we met on a saturday at a party i was dragged to
and you were there because you were the host.
it was the standard party with joints and kegs
and i remember seeing you do a toast
while you were standing on the couch with a red cup.
you pointed out a girl in the crowd and said,
"to the ******* absolute mistake of falling in love
with your ******* best ******* friend. ****.
and to the pretty girls who won't rescue me. drink up."
and i realized you were an exquisite human being,
even in my drunken state i knew you were special.

we met on september 2nd, the first day of school,
in homeroom, and you didn't remember or talk to me
while i memorized the colour of your eyes and
the curve your lips and the sturdiness of your jaw
throughout the year.

we met again at the same party a year ago
and, as it's said, the rest was history.

i do not have a home.
i do not live in the one you imagined for us -
no condominium or house, just a basement apartment,
rented each month for nine hundred and fifty dollars,
filled with furniture and memories that don't belong to me
and two tiny windows that make it all seem fine,
like, someday, i'll graduate and move onto better,
bigger and better things that i am currently
working my *** off for - only hoping i don't regret it.
this basement apartment (if you can even call it that)
is cold and lonely and nothing like how i wish to be.

home isn't a person or a place,
it is just an illusion people have created
to feel happy and safe and at peace with the world.
home does not exist for me.

He is the extraordinary one,
the one who grew wings and flew away.
Went to the City of Angels to prove to me
that he belonged in that atmosphere.

He took my heart and shattered it
into a million tiny pieces,
reached into my body and
dug his fingers into my organs to empty
out all the blood and bad in them.

He emptied my translucent veins
out onto the cold bathroom floor,
making me cold like stone,
unable to move and see and breathe,
without as so much as an apology.

He was the humming in my veins,
but I wasn't even the ******* dust
on his  f i n g e r t i p s.

& if he was to fly back to me
and smile that smug smile of his,
I'd let him hurt and empty me
all over again.