My accomplishments don’t appease you.
My absence goes unnoticed.
The light I shone only dimmed
because theirs burned brighter.
My flight is ready to depart.
We’re two weeks and two states apart.
Just two weeks, you said, and then you fled,
leaving that eight-year-old little girl at the airport to put a new family ahead.

So much was said in the unsaid
We spoke in static
Nothing moved but us
Letters never sent
My memory erased the words you never meant and those moments spent

Heart race at an unsteady pace
Freckles dance across her face
Honey golden hair bathed in sunlight
Rare beauty beyond compare
At a distance I stare
At a woman who wouldn't dare search for me
In crowded rooms

Your touch etched beneath my heart
Sore and gruesome
Unforgettable hurt
Wounded thoughtlessly
Taunted by the absence that haunts me boundlessly
Suffocated by the depths of you
Captured by the heartache you burdened through me too

There are marionette strings sewed into nine places: to each leg, hand, shoulder, and ear, and at the base of my spine. I’m completely and utterly entangled. Each tug of the strings tears at my flesh and nerves. I’m in agony, each wave of pain leaving me more helpless. My cries for the torment to end fall on deaf ears. I try to fake a better feeling by clinging to a fantasy that offers a brief escape.