Whenever I hear a car roll down my street, I stop and think for a second that it might be you. I know it's just my brain playing tricks on me. I know it isn't you. It never is. And still, when I hear the engine stop and a car door slam shut, my stomach ties itself in knots. I know it isn't you. It never is. And here I am, looking out my window at the empty street, pretending not to acknowledge how absolutely ******* pathetic this is.

It's almost been two weeks
and it's safe to say that if clocks didn't exist
this would feel more like two years

I sleep on the left side of the bed
just in case you decide to come back
in the middle of the night
I close the front door behind me but I
always leave it unlocked
incase you need to let yourself in
I keep the key to my heart under
the doormat of my soul
You step on it
and I say thank you
I keep all my belongings in my pockets
leaving my hands free for the off chance
that you come up behind me
and reach for one

You cracked open my chest asking
for your heart back
and I handed you the hammer
You didn't even say thank you,
you must have forgotten your manners
somewhere along the way;
somewhere between loving me and becoming enemies

I can't seem to sleep without you singing
me goodnight
The memories race through my mind like
an old tape that only plays on repeat,
I can't decide if it's broken or not.

You were good at fixing things
with your hands,
all hammers and nails and tape measures,
I wonder how long we'd have to pull
on either end before you gave up
and let go

I tell myself it's all just temporary insanity.
That one day you'll come back to me
with a red tool box in your hand ready
to fix the ******* mess you've made
It's a little like trying to treat
a stab wound
with a bandaid

It's a little like telling myself
that you still love me,
because pretending is easier
than facing the truth
and the truth is that
we haven't spoken in months;
the right side of my bed stays cold;
my hands are always empty;
and the front door never opened
again.

This feels like a 3 minute round
in the boxing ring
Only the 3 minutes lasts an eternity
No one wants to tell me that
before I step inside
Lacing my gloves like I actually
stand a chance
It's the battle between your heart
and mine,
and it doesn't even seem to matter
that my heart has always
beat a little faster,
a little harder in your presence.
I get knocked down
time after time after time,
and you keep looking at me with
a face that asks
"why do you keep getting back up?"
I don't know. I don't.
I can't even see straight anymore.
I'm looking into a world where
you and I aren't in love and all I can think
is that I don't want to see any longer.
I want to tell you that I love you,
as if that will make a difference,
but all that comes out of my mouth is
"I don't want to do this without you".
They're all asking me what I mean by that.
I can't bear to tell them the truth.
I can't bear to see my mom's face when I say that I don't want to be here anymore.
I don't want to hear those sounds
of heartbreak escaping from her stomach.
I'm sorry mom. It's just too hard.
I look at you again and
I want to tell you that I love you,
But all that comes out of my mouth is
"please,"
And I can't bear to finish my sentence.

I feel sick to my stomach when I think of you kissing anyone else
I'm sick with the torturous knowledge that none of them could ever hope to love you like
I did
I want to tell her that I held your heart in my hands for so long that it became commonplace until the day you decided you wanted it back
I want to call you a re-gifter
But I can't seem to get the bees out of my throat
Swallowing glass has to be less painful than this
Than watching you look for someone else like I haven't been standing right in front of you all this time
Yesterday was my first Thanksgiving without you in years
And I'm not sure I remember how to be thankful for anything else
I'm trying to remember the last sunset we saw together
The sky painted itself black and blue and I pretended not to identify with that
I've been writing poetry warning myself of this day for years
And taking this ring off my finger doesn't make it any less painful
or any easier to fool myself into thinking
that I haven't shoved the last 4 years of my life into a box underneath my bed
Like forgetting you is really that simple
I wonder if the ring will still fit by the time you come around again
I wonder if you'll come around again
at all
I want to tell those girls that you don't love them
I wonder if they've imagined what your bedroom looks like yet
I wonder if they know that
the valleys of your mattress are still waiting for me to come back
Waiting to transform against our weight and fill the spaces between your shoulders and my spine
I want to tell them that your walls watched us kiss so many times that it became as common as you turning the lights off
But none of that even matters anymore
and this is the saddest holiday of them all

This feels like a nightmare I've already had too many times before
Only now, I can't manage to wake up
I'm not sure who you were trying to convince when you said you wished this wasn't happening
I wish I could remember the last good day we had
Because all I can seem to remember is four years ago when we were so young and so dumb and so ******* naive and now
And there's no in between
I remember looking at you like you were some kind of God
who swooped down from the sky and saved me
I loved you so much it consumed me
and I didn't ever plan on stopping
The saddest sentence I ever said to you was
"I'm sorry things didn't work out the way we always thought they would."
I wanted you to tell me to shut up
That I had nothing to be sorry for or
that our time wasn't up,
that we still had a chance,
that you still loved me enough to try one more time or a hundred more times,
that love was enough,
but all you said was
*"Me, too."

today
some part of me decided
that the lilac sky reminded
me of you
pale November blue
and a chill in the autumn air
the orange sun hides behind
the morning moon,
you wouldn't even know it was there
if you weren't looking for it
I think that's a little like how I fell for you
the first day I saw you,
you were like the moon I'd never bothered to pay attention to before
but one morning
you look up
its 7 am
and you know the moon isn't supposed to be there
but it is
and it's beautiful
it was a little like that
I looked up one day and I saw you standing there
I'd never noticed you before,
but once I saw you,
I found myself always looking;
always averting my gaze upwards
towards the morning sky
to see the beauty of the moon.

it hurts. it hurts like you never thought it could hurt, never imagined it could hurt. it hurts to be alone, it hurts to know that you don't have him anymore. and what does that even mean, anyway? to have him?
for me it meant safety. it meant never wondering how you were going to spend your free time. it meant always having someone to tell your secrets to, someone's hand to hold, someone to hold you, someone to kiss. it meant having someone to love.
it hurts, having all of that taken away. all of the circumstances, every reason that led up to it; they're all irrelevant because nothing makes it hurt any less.
it's kind of like walking around with a hole in your chest. a big, enormous, gaping hole where your heart used to be.
one time I cried at the orthodontist, and it was awkward and all - lying there, crying with some strangers hands in my mouth.
but it's been even worse at night, lying in bed, crying, when someone who used to be my entire world has their hands inside my chest, scraping out the half of their heart I'd become so accustomed to carrying around, I actually let myself believe it was my own.
it hurts. I know.
and I'm so, so sorry.