i’m over you
no really
truly

i feel nothing when i think of you
and it's bizarre if i'm honest
the emptiness that washes over the cracks in my heart,
over the crooks where sadness and anger were once stuffed

i'm over you, you were in my life for 5 months and it took me 6 to do it
but i am, over you
they say it takes 28 days for skin to regenerate
28 days for the lingering poison of your touch to disappear from my body
you’d think, having been 6 months since you left I would feel good about it
and I’m happy
i feel lighter
just not light

because it takes 28 days for skin to grow anew
but for me its only figurative and poetic
after all you never did touch me
so i feel the ghost of our future together
the one you killed gripping onto my skin,
the weight of what could have been akin to that of the absence of you
I close my eyes and see your silhouette,
the outline of dreams we dared to name but not chase
your voice echoing through the hollow spaces where my hope laid waste

the emotions aren’t there anymore
i can breathe finally not under their weight
but connection lingers, the facts and memories as one

because it’s been 6 months since you walked out
and yet i know that you are a light sleeper
i know that you can’t function without a heating pad
i know what your favorite patches on your jacket are
and what’s the next tattoo you want

I know the careers you dreamed of pursuing
the future you wanted to grasp in your hands
if only the world had given you the chance,
and how it saddens you that it didn’t.
I know every dessert you love is tainted with raspberries some way or another,
every bread you eat bitterly laced with the memory of your father

I know your favorite show
and the scenes that make you cry.
I know what your notebook looks like,
and how my name is written somewhere inside

I know your silences mean fear
I know the snort in your laugh when it’s so raw, so real, that you can’t hold it back.
I know you’re scared to be alone
I know how to read your looks like a page full of words
at your core its you that i know

because five months isn't a lot
but its enough time to learn
and six months isn't enough to forget
i still carry you like a splinter
useless, too small to pull, too deep to ignore
and constantly under my skin

They say time heals, that distance brings clarity,
but time is a thief, stealing everything except the memory
And clarity is cruel, showing me the jagged edges of what I once thought full
where i thought love and warmth lay, distrust and hurt showed
I try to rebuild myself, brick by brittle brick,
but every wall I raise feels like a monument to you

i.m filled with pieces of you like shrapnel,
no box to bury them in, no ears to hold their sting
Maybe one day my skin will forget the not-quite-there touch,
my body will no longer carry the bruises of your latch
But for now, I am a graveyard full of your past, of all you didn’t want
a mosaic of broken pieces waiting to fully be crushed

but if anyone asks
im over you

in my writing anyone can tell i'm a fraud
just a painter trying their hand at a new form
composition swapped for sentence structure,
verses on pages where watercolors on canvases once laid

in your writing i can tell you're a fraud
you put words into your mouth, hope people believe them yours when they spill out
a performative emotional ventriloquist waiting for applause

i used to think writers romanticize and painters show,
after all you were my frame of reference when it came to poetry
but I’ve since learned you’re just not truly a writer

I put down the pencil and picked up the ink
and hey i'm not half bad but you’re not half good
i tried to speak your language not realizing you didn’t know it either
kept handing you words you could rewrite into warnings

come to think of it you never tried to speak mine,
never tried to translate me, never grabbed charcoal
and maybe it's for the better,
you would have smudged it around to cover up who i am
you mime meaning and call it understanding,
i was wrong in mistaking your performance for presence
maybe you being a **** writer wasn't all bad,  if it kept me from the monster you actually believed i am
maybe you being a **** writer is why i too fell in love with the version of me you crafted, she’s a little less ruined

the more i look back the more things i notice, more things to write about
like how your poems were never directed at me,
i was not the audience you were pandering too because you knew you already had me hooked,
no, instead you wrote to another public,
I was a character in your songs you could show off, let people pick and ****
made me into a myth, a tale parents tell their kids to scare them into sleep
you were my muse and the person i was trying to reach with my strokes
not realizing there was no heart to reach for

so i write now and you still don't paint,
if you did i think you’d be bad at it anyway
you’d hate cubism, seeing more than one perspective seems to fracture your mind
and you’d find a way to romanticize it all, put reality aside
you never were good at taking things at face value,
even worse at translating and encompassing things bigger than you
I was the stars but knowing you, you’d just paint a blank black sky, add your own galaxies to and call it a piece worth while

either way i still write, usually about you, always directed at you
i find new words and try to rewrite the story you told,
but if i ever show the public I’ll be sure to make it an illustrated book with all the imagery i know you can't paint

see you're obsessed with poetry and the grotesque, that kind of stuff
think yourself deep for finding beauty in blood, call trauma a sonnet if it bleeds enough
so it's no shock you adored the idea of cannibalism as a metaphor for love
something so pure, so soft turned violent and greedy in your hands
you claimed it beautiful, two becoming one,
sacrifice and devotion a seasoning of life, just table salt
and you took the name of black widow with pride, thought it made you a romantic
i suppose you forgot how the metaphor works, like those secrets we shared in your attic

the idea of love within cannibalism comes from the sacrifice, it speaks of the act of giving
the selflessness of the eaten and not the hunger of the eater
when being devoured is a gift, not a theft
yet you insisted the desperation to taste me was care

you consuming me was not love but me allowing it was
I let you devour me down to the marrow in my bones
let you lick the veins clean and the blood into your cup dripped
i thought it was an exchange, could have sworn in iron ink i spelled your name
thought i tasted your soul when we kissed, oh how naive of me

you let the metaphor consume you much like i did you, much like you wished someone would too
you became obsessed with the obsession of it all, craved to be craved
but devouring someone’s heart doesn’t earn you a place in it
it was love when i laid down on the plate
but please
don't call it love how you licked your fingers clean

the ghost of my devotion stood on trial for you,
role of lawyer in place of victim taken in stride, in strife
i stood by your side fighting for your name while you tore mine down in exchange

i pleaded to the court not realizing the judge and jury had my face
self defense, i claimed
pointed to the scratch on your chest i had left
the one from trying to reach for your heart,
the one for which a bandaid would have been enough

i remember marking you first, remember feeling criminal for it
brazed for life sentence, but still kept gauze ready to treat it like a bleeding artery
there was so much blood in my hands i mistook for yours
drips down my wrists dry and forgotten, blood i recognize now as my own
i hurt you and you killed me, made it look like my own doing

all is fair in love and war. was my excuse
i think they’re one, the way they wound, inevitably

my argument fell apart when the accusant lawyer came forth with the autopsy and sad eyes strikingly like my own
blunt force trauma, mismatched gashes and cuts
post mortem wounds, bruising all over
what you did to the body, after the fact, that was irredeemable
your cruelty kicked and punched, a trail of evidence of hatred undeniably left behind

He picked up the fruit, mistook the shine for something familiar
Thought the crimson red meant safety
a comfort food he remembered from childhood

Hungry and eager, tongue sliding over lips
he popped it into his mouth
biting down hard
expecting raspberries’ familiar flood

But the sound of something breaking met him instead
A tooth chipped on the cherry pit
It was a cherry after all

Starvation had blurred his sight
He thought I was soft, sweetness of an old friend
But I was never raspberries
He just never looked long enough to know

The illusion shattered in his mouth
iron taste instead of tartness
He spat it out, blood and juices mingling
bone and pit, both broken, indistinguishable now

He walked away, changed but not beyond repair
red-stained hands already reaching for another low-hanging fruit
too desperate to clean before, too desperate to care,
too starved to seek fruit he might like more
The cherry lay behind, torn and spent
pit smashed, flesh split wide

In time, the earth will cover it
The water will nurture what remains
Years will pass, roots will sprout
The cherry blossom will rise strong again
And in the branches
more cherries will grow
sweeter than they ever were before

i called what we had puppy love
unwavering adoration, unadulterated innocence
pure and simple and unconditional in its essence
with heart eyes, blushes, smiles so wide
butterflies in my stomach i took for a tail that wagged
and endless “i love you”s like proud barks
i did not realize that love was only on my side

Unconditional, loyal, like a dog at your feet
i would never bite the hand that fed me rich pedigree
but you weren’t even feeding me the real thing
in its place scraps of treats left behind by the last breed

with no love to spare and bones bare
I’ve grown too old  now for your fleeting care
not fun to play with anymore, not your shiniest toy,
too much work with no reward, I sparked no joy
so you kicked me out and drive to the store
to adopt a new pet as I sit at the back door
you lock me outside with no guide or reason why,
left me with false hope as my only light

so i wait again for you to open your home to me as i grow bored
wait to be fed even just the trash from your floors
pawing and barking, pleading to stay
promising I’d change if you’d look my way
to love you better this time around
to bite less no matter the hits you use to put me down

leaves fall as i sit by the door to no avail,
spring calls as I see another puppy gather your mail
the months go by as im forced to watch
before I decide I’ve had enough

so I pull myself away determined to walk out of your back lawn
only to find a fence keeping me stuck until the end of dawn
i think of digging under or jumping over, plot a way to escape and find new love
but you told the world I was rabid, wild,
A beast with danger in its eyes, untamed and reviled
described me with sharp canines and a killer instinct, when we both knew i couldn’t hurt an insect
You painted me with your cruel disdain
ensuring no one else would ease my pain should i ever get away

you told me once I was bright
insisted on it as I tried to tell you I wasn't, tried to show you
You said you'd hear none of it
I mistook your wish to not listen as a promise you saw, saw me
I know now, you never did
you were holding a candle, mistaking its glow for my own as its heat warped my reflection
the orange haze altered the way my skin looked, made the shadows retreat out of sight

I had to think back hard
trying to remember when you began to alter reality’s way for your comfort
I think it was from the start
You brought the candle with you from day one
I see you carry it everywhere, erasing your own darkness with it even now
It makes sense, I saw the glow on your skin
i believed your praise so wholeheartedly
i assumed it was my own shine bouncing onto you
just as you said, insisted
with time of course, your eyes adjusted to the light so much so you could see me
the shadows zoning back in, everything too clear for your liking

and so naturally you moved the candle closer and closer and closer
Hoping its heat would keep changing and morphing that which you hate
would soften me, melt away the harsh edges I had spent years sharpening,
strip me down into something smooth, something pliable, someone you could claim to love
and each time it had less and less effect

It didn't hurt for a while if i’m honest,
sure, sometimes the heat made me sweat,
but I just assumed it was that warmth people talk about when they talk about love
there was not one butterfly in my stomach, just smoke in my lungs from where you were burning me,
lit me on fire in hopes whatever charred remains fit your fantasy
You expected me to be a Phoenix, raising pure from the ashes for your entertainment
as if that didn't mean I had to die first

And you know, it all makes it so much more hurtful to remember
when you walked away from the fire you started
sunglasses on claiming it was too bright for you
you took your stupid candle with you
always wanting to search for what you’re missing in someone else's flames

Here's what you don't know
In trying to light me up, you only managed to cast an even darker and bigger shadow,
behind my back where nobody sees, but I feel it's cold constantly
It almost makes me wish for the burn of the candle
tell me, is that not the cruelest part?

I tried meeting you where you stood,
made silence feel like something good.
I kept on folding just to cope,
called it patience, called it hope.

I bent so far I lost my shape,
Adjusting to the mood you made.
Held space for you, but not for me —
kept calling strain a kind of peace.

You brushed off things I said were deep,
then blamed me when I couldn’t sleep.
I swallowed truth to keep you still —
but I’m not choking on your will.

I won’t turn off my own desires,
or play it cool to keep things calm.
I’m done setting myself on fire,
just to keep on keeping you warm.

Father, another child has taken my toy.
Take it back, boy. Be a man.
Father, my work was ruined by a classmate.
Do the same to his, boy. Be a man.
Father, I’ve fallen, I need help.
Get up yourself, boy. Be a man
Father, I’m lost, the darkness encases.
Find a way back home, boy. Be a man
Father, the icy air bites.
Warm yourself up, boy. Be a man
Father, hungry eyes stalk me in the dark
Toughen up and face them, boy. Be a man
Father, a pack of wolves approach
Fight back, boy. Be a man
Father, they have caught me.

Help…

Son, I should’ve been there.
Don’t cry, father. Be a man

Make sure there's nobody around
To see you leave this place,
Keep your eyes down,
Don't even look back at me.

If they ask why you were gone,
You were studying; you ran back,
I know they'll ask why you're flushed,
But keep your head down and nod.

Drive down the backroads when you leave,
Replay the words I always say:
"You can always stop"
But I know we won't get there

To those meetings in parking lots,
Because we're just lying in these rooms
Continuing this illicit affair
Because we failed to hide our longing stares.

It started with just a kiss, now it's so much more,
And it'll end with all of this,
Dying and dying like the stars we sat under
A million times together.

When you leave, take everything with you,
Delete all the photos, and emails,
Like we didn't exist at all,
I'm sorry I left you stranded again.

But don't take my words to heart,
I'm just high of the taste of you,
It'll all wear away soon,
No illicit affairs to die anymore.

And if we talk again, I'm screaming on the inside,
Because if you try to call me baby,
I'll cry, like we died, and I can't let you
See all those parts of me again.

So don't come up to me again
Like we're back to normal—it's just pretend
And I know that I'm a broken mess,
But you made me keep coming back

So I know all too well how this goes,
This game, this play, this twisted show,
And I can't deny that I would ruin myself
For you a million times.