the last time i wrote a poem about you, i compared you to a constellation.
it's so hard not to think of you like a group of stars, with your hair always in a disarray and your eyes like pools
of milky coffee i've drowned in on so many sleepless nights
( i don't even like milk in my coffee).
now, when i think about you
you aren't anything celestial in my head. in my head,
you used to be all i ever thought about.
now, now when i think about you, i think about your fingers
(holding mine when i am falling apart),
and your voice on the phone at 1 am
(and "crying isn't weak"),
and the weight of your head on my shoulder
(on difficult days, when holding ourselves up is harder than breathing)
and singing along to bad music in the car when there's nobody else around
(and the Doors when there is).
i guess you could say this is a goodbye poem.
i guess you could say you crawled out of the cracks in my ribcage and planted peonies there instead.
i guess you could say that i loved you once. i guess i love you still
but maybe this time my ribcage is my own and my body is my own and my heart is my own
and even if the peonies in my chest try to suffocate me, i know that you will pick them for me
and put them in that vase that always falls off the table when i get drunk.
i guess i'm okay
i guess
i do.
and i guess you are not celestial, you
are a Person, and i guess that i was wrong about loving you
(but i do).
