#writun

you cracked open my chest

sometimes I wanna wrap my car around a tree; 
maybe because 
it’s the closest thing to your tight embrace
that I’ll be able to get 
in this hauntingly empty haze, 
the kind that is so strangely thick that you can feel it 
pressing
your shoulders down,
down,
down, 
trying to sink your heels beneath the concrete,
down to the dirt and the worms.

how many times can they say they are sorry before it becomes so empty that you hardly recognize it as a word, before it goes right through you, leaving only unsettling sensation, as if it were nothing but a ghost passing through a wall. how many times do you look down at your chest and see that your heart is gone, to find it only in the midst of their sweaty palm (they promised they would keep it next to theirs they promised they promised where did you go wrong? loving someone who has hurt you over and over, for so long?) how many times must they crush a piece of your heart between their fingers, saying "it was an accident. all I was trying to do was love you. to keep you here. close. with me." before you must pry open their hand, and try to piece it all back together? stitch up the scars and pray that they won't show up so clearly if you every try to give your heart away again- that is, if you get all the pieces back.

because this tshirt smells like you and I have strong lungs I breathe in slow, deep, and hold it, hold it, slowly release; because that is how I am trying to let you go because my dad hates it when I ramble, I will tell you that I miss everything about you over and over but only in my head because you left, and the corner of your suitcase that I tucked myself into is getting too cramped for me to breathe in slow, deep, or even at all. because I said goodbye to you when you got on a plane, yet you still called and told me you loved me and yet, I let you, because your tshirt is in the bottom of my drawer and when I see it I think of you dancing in a thick, hazy fog of smoke, brashly sliced by moonlight because when I told you that I wanted you to start new, you told me you loved me, and as my mind tried to conjure up the proper words to tell you that missing you made my lungs weak, you asked me to never text you again again you let me down, again you let me go because you left because you chose to wear the soles of your shoes down on a different grain of concrete, and I am still standing right where you said goodbye you said goodbye because it’s been nearly two years since you took my breath away and sometimes I still forget to breathe.

I used to give my poetry away as free samples; I used to let just anyone have a taste of me if they so much as flashed me a smile, but you, oh you had the sharpest teeth of all, and when your jaw clamped down you would not let go, and I grew up being convinced that love hurts, so I suppose I thought that's what this was

your wide, gaping eyes burn and smolder into mine; like bulletholes, gaping, pouring. your eyes chill me to the core and I wonder who pulled the trigger and made your eyes pour so who shook you to your core? who’s eyes did you look into when the bang of the gun rang in your ears? who tore you apart?

One of these days I will learn how to not text you when I think of you. But, for now, it’s nighttime, so hello, I miss you, I hope you’re doing well.

I keep waiting to feel something or feel someone next to me in bed, on the streets, a comforting hand in mine, but, for now, my best friend is the linoleum floor of the bathroom and the shapes I can make out on the textured walls, like the dinosaur in the bottom right-hand corner, or the sad face below the toilet paper dispenser and I keep waiting for something, someone, to breathe life back into me, but everyone has a different definition of what it is like to truly be living, different views on whether or not loving is living, so, for now, the ceiling fan is my lover, because I can easily turn it on and off when I please, and as I watch the blades whirl I think of how I used to spin for you like that, how I used to blow you away like the loose leaf papers on my desk. now the only piece of you that remains in the sheets next to me is the slight dip in the mattress from where you used to lie when I roll into it, I can almost feel your laugh vibrating in your chest, almost feel you wrap your arms around me but, for now, the only thing wrapped around me is the scarf that got caught in the door when you left, did you know that the slamming sound still haunts me? you told me I was a lost cause, and if that is true, then why can I find myself shrouded in a cloud of longing, drifting among the broken hearted in alleyways and in telephone wires? I keep waiting for someone to tell me I’m right where I need to be, but no one dares to walk down this street, and none of the restless souls here dare to say this is where we belong. I keep waiting for someone to open my eyes, and I ask myself who it could be and as I look in the mirror I know that the only one that can save me is me, but you took so much of me with you when you left, that without you, I am no longer sure who I am.