She will brush against your thigh and pretend that she didn't, and she'll look you in the eyes and tell you she likes them. She will take the band out of your ponytail because she likes your hair long, she will let you listen to her favorite song and it will get stuck in your head. She will kiss your lips until they are numb and she will hold your hands until they go numb too. Don't watch the sunset with her, because you won't be able to watch it again without missing the smell of her perfume. Don't make her call you by your nickname, because afterwards you won't be able to hear it. Your heart will be heavy and so will your head but just remember you were beautiful before he said so.

The only words you hear are hushed voices in separate rooms and calls are being declined, I know because my grandmothers hands shake and my grandfather stops speaking out loud, my eyes are never dry during these seasons but you never see or ask why—the poison sitting inside of the orange bottles he gave you blur your vision—you wonder why I hate taking medicine, maybe this is the reason, I refuse to let poison take the sanity out of my body like it has done to yours—there are no more 2x6 boards and nails holding you together, you are free, is this how you always wanted it to be like? Tell me why you become filled with anger when they don’t ask you how you’re doing—is there something that you have left unsaid? Tell me why you never stopped loving me even when I left you to drown, searching for the bottom of the bottle.

missing u is like rebuilding my childhood home after it has been destroyed by bombs instead of relief—my clothes that you sent back to me are still sitting on my doorstep, they probably still smell like you—please come back and get them and while you're here let yourself inside and come to the wine cellar and tell me you never stopped loving me