when I tell him about you...
i'm not going to lie.
i'm not going to tell him
you were a good man that wanted him
but couldn't find a way.

that would be a lie.

when I tell him about you...
i'm going to do my best to be honest
without breaking his little heart
the way I once thought you broke mine.

what would be the point?

when I tell him about you...
i will tell him about all the times
you made me feel happy, but not that
every one of those moments were dripping in guilt.

i want him to know you were good once.

i'll tell him you were in the military
i'll tell him you were a brilliant story-teller
that built beautiful intricate worlds that twisted and turned
just like our lives did when we met.

even better, i'll tell him how we met
over a D&D table surrounded by people
and how much hurt we could've avoided had we left the
friendship in the fantasy world our characters thrived in...

maybe i'll leave the nerdy bits out though...

when i tell him about you i will make sure he knows your name, i'll make sure he knows enough to paint a picture in his mind and hold on to, not to idealize but just to know. you were good once. But i hope to God he never finds you. i hope he never feels the way i do about you, full of resentment and disdain because you chose elsewhere instead of here with our son.

My son.

He deserves more than you could ever have given him anyway.

Sometimes I forget for an instant
who we are.
In those moments where:
I hold your head in my lap and brush my hands through your hair.
You hold me captive against you under the freezing stream of water in the shower.
I watch the lights dance across your face as we drive through small towns late at night.
You stand behind me in the kitchen next to the stove, strewing kisses across my back,
my shoulders, my neck.

In those moments you are everything. You are mine.
And she doesn't exist.

My bones feel heavy and
my skin presses tight into my
        cold, purple sheets.
There is a knot tearing at the center of    
          my chest.
Arteries pump blood like fire to my heart and I fear it may combust.

       Burn me up like an incinerator,
flames engulf every part of who I am,
dragging everything around me
into the implosion, spitting out
      Ashes of what could've been.

my heart is made of scattered stars
glowing bright with their intent.

the constellation beautiful from afar
until the darkness comes.

Collapse is all there is.

the sweeping desolation.
shadows of once-brilliant celestial bodies
buried deep inside a shell with a
devastated soul.

my heart is made of scattered stars
that fold under pressure of
Love. Passion. Finality.
but when one star dies
the rest burn brighter
in the absence of its light.

my lungs collapse upon themselves
as I listen to you speak,
causing my chest to squeeze
and my ribs to break.

Once someone earns my love,
I can never take it back.
I will always remember the way the light reflects
in the blue of your eyes and I'll
always remember why I love you.

I will never forget the way your hands feel
tracing across my back in the shadows cast by moonlight
and I will never forget why I love you.

I will know the feel of your lips brushing mine
in the closest embrace we can manage and
I will know, always, why I love you.

but together we wear out,
     we fall apart,
           we pretend everything is fine.
that i'm just yours and you're only mine...

But in the end we burned up like stars
we fizzled out, faded away

But I will never forget that I love you.