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what was never

even mine?

No clue

all I know is I do

He wanted to smell like oceans

Instead he drowned himself in the fragrance of a liar, a cheat

A waste of the expensive cologne I gave him

I was his lifeboat

Tossing second chances in to his waters like a fisherman casting a net

Hoping to catch my happy ending

He was a con artist masquerading as a lover

That claimed he belonged to me

I was lost at sea for so long I became hollow, floating like driftwood, drifting away

then my head stopped listening to my heart

I finally learned to swim - my existence, finally plucked from the water

I learned how to fly away

down the coastline

I sit at my new favourite place

Waves crashing against the rockbed

Remembering how his troubled waters carried me asunder

Remembering that he is no good waste of space, pollution to the air I breathe

how I made the choice to fly away home

left it all behind to reclaim my happiness

Yet his absence still takes up space in my head

I had run out of words

to describe the anger I felt.

But, I felt it just the same.

I don’t want to tuck the truth

Into bed at night

With me by its side.

I want to fight.

Tired-eyed,

Sleep-deprived.

Where is my blade, where is my knife?

I need to be a flame

That rises against the tide,

Even if I’m washed away,

Even if I find no peace of mind.

Even if I’m ashes by the end,

Fine.

Yearning has a grip on me. Struck by lightning, scars fork under my skin. I need this now. To be the only one. Never again

locked out cold. No lack, no misery. I need this, divine messenger writing on my bones in garnet, last goodbyes forgotten.

I need the fire in the snow, the light on the ocean floor. My heartbeat reflected in a god’s confession of aching for warm touch,

for flesh tight under fingers. I need this now. The rhythm of breath against my skin. I need to be taken in, burn raw against the dark.

The back stained with the written promise of,

“Soon, I’ll be with you.”

I keep waiting.

I keep wanting.

Like a child sensing the heavy betrayal that’s only abated by buoyant hope.

But it stings...the oncoming weight that will drop,

already it stings, like the heat on my bare-feet as it sneers off a sidewalk

I wait

I wait, for the postcard to fly away

The ink to fade.

I wait.

All of my plants have been dying

First turning yellow, then black

Because I can’t seem to focus on

The right things

I can seem to breathe life

Into myself

No matter how much time I practice saying

Yes, I’m doing okay

Just taking it a day at a time

I still press moon shaped indents into my palms

I allow the nausea to shrink me into nothingness

& I go to bed early to avoid the sunsets

Because the long shadows of dusk remind me of

it’s like this echoing that you aren’t here anymore you are not here to cheer me on to calm me down from anxiety to tell me you are always here

When your heart isn’t beating for anyone

It’s like, not only does my love life not have a pulse

But my creative mind is dead too

When you left, you didn’t just take yourself

It feels like you took my magic with you

Flowers and stars no longer fill my vision

Nor do they buffer my heart and soul

Instead I’m vulnerable, penetrable really