You're talking to the air now.

It's the kind of silence after a funeral, after something has been taken that you can never get back. It's the kind of sorrow that feels like wet ashes, the kind that sticks under your nails and leaves behind heavy footprints when you run. It's the kind of pain you can get art out of, the only kind that creates but also destroys so well. It's the kind of bitterness you hate yourself for, the kind that grinds itself into your bones and sours everything you taste.

It's the kind of thing you drain yourself worrying about, that makes everything black out on the inside. It's the kind of repetition that makes you wonder if history is not so much a timeline but a cycle that's got you in a chokehold. It's the kind of abandonment that leaves you feeling at home in condemned houses; something about them resonates within you, feels like family. It's the kind of wound you refuse to let heal over; as long as it hurts at least you're grounded in some kind of existential qualifier.

It’s the kind of ache that creeps up on you slowly and then one day, before you realize it, there’s only ache left. It’s the kind of disappointment that becomes second nature, the kind that always lingers like last night’s lover, always wanting one last taste, always waiting just around the corner for the next time they scent blood. It’s the kind of loss you write poems about, the kind that’s metaphysical more than anything else, the kind that makes space wider between the letters “y”, “o”, “u”, and “m”, “e”.

You're getting older but you're not growing up; it's the kind of metastatic growth that was never any good for anyone. It’s the kind of thing you cry about in the quiet hours, the kind of thing that you fill oceans with iron over. It’s just picking swimming over sinking. It’s the kind of lesson that stings to the touch every time you go over it, the kind that burns every time you flick it open for revision.

It’s just the kind of life you’ve been living, that’s all.