its coming up on a year
a year without you
longer than I had with you to begin with
and I can say I don't think of you often
in passing more than anything
and i feel little about it

I know one day it will be my wedding day
someday, as lace cinches my waist and vows hover in the air,
as i get ready you’ll cross my mind
not from longing, just a glitch in memory’s muscle
curiosity killed the cat but I’ve been dead all my life
so I’ll wonder where life has taken you
and I’ll be glad I don’t know for sure, glad you’re not at the end of the altar waiting for me
and maybe I’ll have the children I would never have been able to have with you
and they’ll like poetry, and I’ll think of you again
I’ll teach my boy to not act the way you did, the way I hope by then you don't either

I’ve come to accept that thinking of you will happen
you shaped me as a person and six months can hold a lot of weight, turns out
I’ve stopped worrying about subconscious meanings
I think of you not because you still hurt me, not because I’ve not moved on
I think of you the way i do about those mornings when I was seven and watched the tv all alone  just to let time pass
in the way i think about that one mean girl from middle school, or that pretty girl from high school
in the way i think about my grandpa, the memories few and blurry and probably half made up
in the way i think about my first job, a lesson of bitter taste followed by so much better
in the way i think about every other boy that came and hurt and went

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 the unexpected safety of a club bathroom
i lean over the sink, hands damp, breath slow.
through the haze, i catch the girl next to me
i marvel at her bronze skin as she reapplies lipstick with precision
the same shade i wore minutes ago
i compliment her bracelet.
she smiles, thanks me.
i go back to the mirror, thinking that was that.

but then she taps my shoulder
and hands me a candy from the many in her bag
neatly wrapped, cherry flavored
“like my lip balm” i think
“like your lip balm,” she says as she smiled
and in that moment i almost cry
because how could a drunk stranger in a bathroom see me for me better than you ever had?

you tasted the cherry lip balm i love as you kissed me, so you bit my tongue to taste blood instead

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?

you grew up with stories
wine that tasted like iron
and bread from the bone
your romanization of cannibalism should be no shock
you could not only excuse it but worship it

love and hurt are both four letters
and they taught you to count not read
holy and pain look close enough blurred
so punch me with your lips
and hold me with your fists
blood pumps through the heart but pools warm in bruises
you hurt me because that’s how they said He loves

it confused me, the faith, the hymns, the god
all i believed in as a kid was the pain, the pop, the no power above
but i think i get it now
i am no believer, never been, but i kneel when you ask me to
not even god gets that kind of loyalty anymore
i let you hurt me because that’s how sheep love

i mistake resurrection for staying dead a little longer
sacrifice and slaughter feel just as ******
trust and surrender have the same control
devotion and worship bruise your knees the same way
obsession and hunger look the same in the dark
need and want feel like desire, if you look past the lack of spark
god and the men pretending to be him are violent

and maybe I understand communion now
forgiveness tastes sweeter coming from your lips
I’d risk everything just to bask longer in it
sin has never been so tempting
purity is just a concept, opiates dissolve in your holy water
and baby I’m willingly drowning in it
let it baptize me clean
so make me feel unworthy, make me think you cruel
make me test my faith it’s okay
I’ll i bite the apple, say the words, ask to be crucified
watch you lick the blood from my palms and call it divine retribution
take the punishment as proof you’re real, take the pardon as proof you’re kind

i became religious you became a god
a pedestal and an altar aren’t too far beyond
we became that which we couldn’t understand before,
we were not meant to be this