how great it is to realize
that without you now,
there is nothing keeping me here
here in this town,
in this state,
with these people

how great it is to realize
that now I am alone
and free
free to find love and myself and
love within myself
away from you

how awful it is to realize
that these things aren't great at all
standing here without you now,
I can't help but feel so small
the world is big and our love was great,
but it was great and that was all.

how great it is to realize
that I can stand without you now
and that I will not fall.

perhaps many years from this day
I will stumble across you
not the actual you,
the you with eyes as brown as mine and
hands that reminded me how to feel

but some other form of you

a ticket stub from that one movie we saw
a couple of months ago
we sat in the back so that no one would know
we spent our time sharing kisses
instead of watching the movie
that we evidently paid eight dollars
and fifty cents each
to go see

or a password on the computer
I never bothered to change
our initials and the date
I couldn't forget if I tried
are still the only combination
of letters and numbers
that have ever completely made sense to me

perhaps many years from this day
I will stumble across you
yes, you, the actual you
with some other girl under your arm
gleaming up at your brown eyes
your hands laced together
as if it had only been her
all along

I will stumble across you
on a busy city street
you are with her
and I am alone

but I will stumble across you
and I will smile.

I guess now that all is momentarily calm
the war has stopped
and the dust has settled
it's easy to see
that after all there was to say has been said
and all there was to do has been done
I am still the only one
holding on

I have known no greater pain
than this
         this moment where you no longer
love me back

this life where I am alone and
without you
this world where you are not mine
this morning I woke up alone
and tonight
I will fall asleep alone
only to repeat this daunting new cycle
the next day
and the next

and I can't even put this into a context
in which I am familiar with
because this world where I am alone
and without you
has never before existed

I am sick with the constant thought of you;
of your contagious laughter and
our poisonous love
that I am painfully aware
we no longer share

and in this moment
I feel it everywhere

everywhere
everywhere
everywhere

I will not sit here in lies I cannot swallow,
I cannot wallow in this world of sorrow
without you
I cannot hold my head up and pretend as if
you never meant anything to me -

how can I pretend you never meant anything to me when
I cannot stand to breathe this hollowed air
without you,
live on this broken, godforsaken earth
without you,

and is it me or has time completely stopped
without you?
is it me
or has the earth reverted to spinning backwards on its axis
without you,
have the tides of the ocean ceased to kiss its beloved beach
without you,

or has it only been me?

has it only been me
who has spun backwards on my axis
and stood frozen in the empty sea

dear god,
has it only been me
all along?

maybe I should have expected this
all along
for him to stop while he was ahead
and cut his losses
by desperately searching for the hold button
two and a half weeks before our lives were supposed
to start changing

maybe I rushed this part
this part where we were supposed to grow together
as if we hadn't been doing just that
for the past three years of our lives

but I'd still close my eyes every afternoon
and snuggle into the cotton of your t shirt
the warm glow of the setting sun washing over your walls
feeling like the luckiest girl alive
just to be able to be sitting there
smelling the fabric softener of your bed sheets
lilacs and lavender
feeling like if it weren't for the weight of your hand on my chest
that maybe
I could float away from all of this

two and a half weeks before our lives were supposed to start changing
I realize that
all I really need
is now

Perhaps the most beautiful part
of it all was the fact that he
loved me regardless of my
many imperfections. I swear far
too much, I fail at moderation,
and I am quite possibly the most
emotionally inconsistent being
on this ******* earth. But in
his eyes, every day was a new day.
A new day to live and laugh and
love - if we were lucky, we did
these things together. In his eyes,
he was always lucky.
In mine, I still am.
I am lucky to have loved you.
*Gosh, I am lucky beyond
compare.

My body is a work of art, crafted equal parts by my parents and the stars and Jupiter. The blood that runs through my veins is golden. I am stitched together with ribbons of resilience and strength. I am unbreakable. Invincible. You cannot touch me.