It’s not the ghost of you, dear;
It’s the reality of all you left behind
That haunts me.

Tonight
I’m restless,
Tossing and turning
Inside memories of us.

This is to remind you, love:
Remind you that love—
Real love—
Is reminded of your love every day.
Please
Remember this, love:
The love that loves
Only you—
Real,
True,
Good love
That won’t ever stop loving you.

I’ve got plans to let you go,
To burn every memory
And scatter them beneath your window—
One day,

You’ll see what could’ve been.

I don’t have to change the names,
hide beneath hyperbole and metaphor,
or remove details to protect our guilt.

Neither one of us is blameless;
we both created a storm that left behind lifetimes of wreckage.

And I dare not pretend this is in honor
of the beauty we were in the beginning.

No—

this is an ode to a tragedy that will always be:
the you and me that we became.