No one warned me about healing,
and that when you begin to let go,
it means working through all the things
you ignored along the way:
every weeping wound,
every halted, furious scream,
every memory you tried to forget,
and even the things you never knew
you'd felt in the first place.

To let go of everything that no longer serves,
I have to go back in time
and tell myself how it is all okay now,
and hope that will be enough
to set me free again.

Ask me to fall in love?
Love is a sickness,
and should it leave such scars
as it had the last time I was afflicted,
I might shrivel up and die.

Dare it to leave wounds without sutures?
Skin without scratches?
Bodies without bruises?

Two afflictions of the mind are unbearable:
Both of two in love
And the sadness that sullies it.

Distance has become my new lover,
and I cower behind her,
I beg her not to let me get hurt like before,
Lest I fall sick again.

The thought of being in love with anything else feels
Intense,
Like fingers digging much too far
Into my skin,
Drawing the deep oxygenated blood to the surface.

Foreign bodies with foreign bodies,
unknown hands with unknown hands,
we said we are in love together,
but we don't know where we stand;
such is the torture
of ghosts loving ghosts,
you never dared to tell me who you were,
nor I shared with you who I am.

Look at us now,
just two shadows in love,
no wonder when the two converged,
they slipped right through each other.

The same mouth that kisses,
Damns you,
The same arms you run to
Swing back,
And the ones you love the most
Will hurt you,
It's all a part of the plan.

I don't make art anymore.
It's so tedious and eats up a part of me
that I can barely hold up.

I'd rather just be a resting body,
but that route seems to cause just the same
discomfort.

Tired, irritable; I want to do as much
as I do not,
and I feel like all my time goes to waste.

My reflection isn't me;
I feel like I am five
years younger than I am.
My art is fueled by the discordance
which makes it so hard to make or write.

I fluctuate:
okay to awful,
to make to give up,
I'm me, who is she?
I don't make art anymore.

There I was.
Resting.
You remember, don't you?

Me; nuzzled into the crook of your neck,
my hands gripping at your shirt...
you fancied it, you know.

The embrace was warm,
and our heartbeats may have synchronized
in hopes of lulling us to sleep.

You remember all of this,
I'm certain,
but there are some things
you don't.

At approximately five or so minutes
before I buried my swollen, dark, brown eyes
into your chest,
I was choking back tears.

Every time I hugged you,
it dulled my depression just enough
for me to pretend my heart
didn't live like someone was having
a boxing match with both atriums and the aorta;
no, it was a searing pain that dulled
in moments like these,
replaced with a suffocating tension.

I knew as soon as I left you,
I would be shaking,
on the ground in panic
or digging my nails into the utmost layers
of my body;
you didn't know that this moment we shared
was more about me
masking how much pain I regularly endured,
and about using you to soothe my psyche enough
to pretend I was alright.