Where do I start in letting you go?
It's not in the ruminations. All they'll long for are simpler, purer times, back when loving me was everything you ever knew — back when sighing your name didn't hurt. Now it's a whisper, settling on the ground long after the woodsmoke has stopped lingering. Now, it's just a memory settling deep in an open wound.
And love, where do I start in letting you go? My hands are still bruised from writing poems, when you already were handing me crumpled paper roses — all etched with endings I was afraid to write. The moment you kissed her lips, did you already let me go? Now here on my shoulder rests the weight — the mess of it all. Tell me, what do I do with these words, falling helplessly on my lap? What do I do with all this hurting? What do I do with all this love?
And where do I start in letting you go, when my shaking hands still refuse to confront your absence? When my throat still refuses to abandon all yearning — a wounded huntress that still screams for the moon. And I'd hoped it is easier to stop loving you after your skin had been tainted by her lips, ghosting gently — forming into the sweetest of smiles.
And I'd hoped it is easier to stop loving you after you had drowned August's promises against her hair when you'd deepen your kiss — after you had surrendered September's 4 a.m.s, November's love letters, December's midnight rains, January's stove-lit dances, February's moonlit walks, March's Irish teas and solitude, and April's quiet peace — all of it, spoiled, in the name of her kiss. Now all of it — in ruins, lying, waiting patiently for a can of worms, burrowing their way into everything I held dear.
Rome didn't burn down in a day. I wish I would. I wish we would; what's left in ruins won't ever hurt.
And so love,
where do I start in letting you go?
// "Tell me all the ways of letting you go."
