I thought I could stave off the insanity
Because we ended so well
But I drove through a storm
And I became one

I talked to you
Out loud
Pretended you were still sitting beside me
Launched a conversation that I only wanted to have with you.

I told you
Everything.

I wept
Openly

I confessed
I begged
I reminisced

“How ironic,”
I said at one point in the one sided conversation
“That we should work together better than we ever have now it’s over.”

And I smiled bitterly
And sobbed.

I knew what you’d say,
I could almost hear the deep sounds of your voice
Oh how I craved them.

‘Don’t call.’
The still sane part of me whispered.
‘Let him let you go’.

So I told his ghost.
That I missed him.
How hard it was, him being the only one I wanted to talk to about it.
I told him that I knew he was on the road to moving on from me
That he was already well down the path of discovery
And that he’s soon figure out
That he could do so much better
Than me.
That the evidence was
I was no longer a priority, did he notice?
He forgot me, for long stretches.
I am both happy and heart broken about it.

Did he not remember how I feared being forgotten.

I told his ghost it was okay he was already forgetting.
That the part of me that loves him cleanly
Knew this was the right way to go.
I told his ghost the part that loved him selfishly
Was the part hurting the most
How it protested the forgetting
And begged me to call him.
To return to him.
“I’m still so in love with you”
I cried into the night.

Ah and this is where the insanity sets in
The Unmet expectations
The guessing

I love you.
But I can’t keep doing this to you.
I can’t keep calling you back to me.

So watch me go
Feel my rain, my thunder
And then forget as I drift away
Like a passing storm

The sea has always been
A haven
For me

Wrapped in the waves
Peaceful in the deep
The weights are lifted
On the rise of
It’s heaving chest

Your absence has done strange things to me
So I returned to the sea
To find some normalcy

The sand celebrated
Rising with each step
Welcoming me home
Like a prodigal son

As I breathed it in
I found a flavour on the wind
That never belonged here

And there you are
Suddenly
My eyes drinking you in like an addict
My hands reach out to meet you
Involuntarily
And the calling calling
Of my heart
On your name
Reaches a deafening pitch

My legs are held up by the sea
I lose my strength to stand
‘Ma Coeur’
Tears from my lips.
Relief.
The salt of the sea
Robbing my tears
From my cheeks.
My heart, ma coeur.
My cells sing and my spirit hums.
We are home.
We are home.

But
Before my fingers touch you
Feel the embers from your skin
They sing through
Cold
And empty
Air

And the haven
Is not a haven at all
For it calls for you
With its voice of roaring waves
And wind
With my voice too.

Ma coeur
Come back
Come back!

What have you done?
What have I done?

What have we done to your heart?

I am still

The world is moving
Leaves growing and falling
Changing

But I am still

I am anchored
Days ago
In your arms.

The city plays its strange song
My heart picking up with every step
Toward you
I’m fine
I say,
Too many times to be believed.

I feel my body give way
To a truth I don’t want to feel
When I catch sight of you
It’s like I’ve been hit by something
And it’s all I can do
Not to crumble
Not to run to you.

You smile and hold me for too short a second
I tell myself I don’t care
Even as I feel my fingers aching for you.
You talk you laugh
The sounds of the city dying in your wake
I am entranced by you
I cannot bear to look at you
And yet I cannot look away

You’re beautiful.
All my favourite things.
We walk and talk
And the knife in my throat
lungs that are bricks
Magnetic bones
Steal my words and actions
And I can see you noticing
So I try to become
An actress
aloof
And certain.

My appetite is gone
All my efforts in my charade
You tell me your truths
Truths I wish we’d heard so long ago
And my heart breaks on each one of them
I force the food down.
I study the smells and the sights
Try to stay in the moment
Try to keep it together
When all I want to do
Is reach across
The chasm I built
And weep in your arms
And tell you I was wrong,
Come home.

“I am fine”
I say as your eyes pick at the cracks.

You lead me through
Mazes of architecture and emotions
I’m hypnotised by you
My love, my heart, ma coeur
My body electrified by your presence
Calling calling calling for you
Aching aching aching for you

We sit the same as we always have
Except
So different.
You’re different, more whole somehow and I am successful,
But broken.

We hide in the echoes of an underpass
Chaos and kaleidoscopes of life around us
Oh but how quiet the world becomes
When you speak

Your voice breaks
And with it my charade
Oh my heart
I’m so in love with you
How could I have done this to us.
Completely given up
I cease to fight
And you’re in my arms
We are where we should be.

Holding you like that
Breathing you in
No questions here
We are one heart, one mind
I wished I could be closer to you
I wished you’d hold me tighter
I wished the evidence
Of the right leaving brought
Wasn’t all around us.

You’re talking and we draw in
I cannot keep it up
Ma coeur I cannot.
Coming home in kissing you
Unnatural before, now we are what were meant to be.
You taste so sweet
And I can’t stop reaching
I hold your face like something fragile
I trace the curves of your lips
I lose myself in your summer
And the calling calling
Celebrates into a contented hum.

We’re by the water,
Your hand in mine.
I’ve never felt so complete.
Your lips trace my jaw and whisper
Our truth to my ears.
You are and always will be Ma coeur.

We laugh we play
It’s our best day.
It’s our best day.

The drive home
Myriad of lights and night shadows
And you warm beside.
Though we drive toward
Our end
I hold you every moment I get
I memorise you.

A desperation sets in
As the parting draws closer
You kiss me sweetly
Lighting a fire in my veins
I fold around you like petals
Oh how I want you.

The stars peek behind patchwork’s of cloud
And we hold and kiss each other
As we watch them lazily stroll the sky
You speak softly to me
We talk about goodbyes
We talk about love

And then
We’re standing the the street
You’re holding me one last time
And I’m screaming inside
The intense grieving trying to break through my lips
Each stray sob
You stroke my hair and hold me close
You kiss the tears from my eyes
You tell me it’s okay
This is alright
We have this night.

Days ago,
I wept as I drove away from you
I refused to look back.
For fear I couldn’t stop myself
Returning to you.

Now
I am still

The world is moving
Leaves growing and falling
Changing

But I am still

I am anchored
Days ago
Still
In your arms.

I loathe the silences.

But
It’s been hours since,
We said goodbye,
And I seem to be stuck,
Hours ago,
In that silence I so loathe.

.....
......
‘Still there?’
You say,
somehow not breaking the spell.
‘I just....’
I start,
The sob stealing my sounds.
Shuddering breath,
‘I’m just not ready to let go, just yet.’

....
....
....
‘Holding on a little longer?’
....
....
‘Just a little while longer.’
...

And I sat
And savoured
That precious last silence
With you.

The drive home was a blur of tears and rolling landscape.
You called twice, and both times when your face showed up I couldn’t bear it.
I didn’t want to talk to you.
Didn’t want to hear your voice and relive how it sounded,
when you asked me if I still loved you,
and that despite how I felt
you still loved me.
How your voice broke when you choked on our parting words.
The foolish hope in your voice as you kissed me goodbye on our last day.
I wanted to call the earth to rise up over me.
and pull me under.

Despite our many words,
Our assurances,
I struggled to focus on the road through my sheeting tears,
The words dropping heavily from my lips and falling,
To the pit of my stomach.

‘We are not okay.’

And the lists started writing themselves
In a shudder of memory,
Despite my screaming at them to stop,
They settled in clouds through the air of my car,
Even as I refused them,
My lungs heaving on them,
My heart fluttering.

I pulled over.
I couldn’t see.
I wish I could tell you,
To share with you,
What it took to make me stop.
The tyres slowed to rest
As the sounds erupted from me
I was helpless in the tide.
The thudding of fists on the wheel,
the wracking heaving,
the thin rivers running together into roaring falls.
And
as the storm passed
the thin wail threading through the gathering stillness.

I drifted.

In my dreams he was waiting for me.
I ran to him,
fell into his arms and buried my face into his chest,
my hands like claws gripping him to me.
‘No no no no no no’
I couldn’t stop the words pouring from me, a last desperate refusal,
that I didn’t know the answer.

‘It’s not supposed to go like this, you were meant to stay. You were supposed to be the one! What’s wrong with me? Why doesn’t it work?’

I felt myself separating and heard the pieces of me ****** around our feet.
And you just encapsulated me, warm and golden,
you kissed my crumbling hair.
I couldn’t look at your face,
too afraid
I’d see the cracks forming in your skin.
You didn’t say anything,
just talked without words like you always do,
speaking about a sadness,
a love,
an acceptance.
Peace flowed from you and steadied the ground,
my shaking legs,
my shattering body.
I wept and tried to crack as the warmth held me together
and then,
started to dissipate.