Simple

Nothing is simple in this space.
It has been a week already since you ended things so poorly
and I find myself wishing more time had passed already.

I find myself impatient in this journey, like there is no amount of distance I would love to put between us that I could find gratifying.

And this emotion, that I once cherished so deeply
now feels parasitic.
That even though the tick's body has been wrenched free, the head remains
embedded in my skin. And I'm aware it will continue to grow back
until I light its tail end with match flare warning or drown it in the
fluid embrace of water.

I have waves of lingering sadness that ebb and flow throughout each day.
Tears I refuse to unleash any longer for you or for me.
I don't want them.
In the same ways that I am still not ready to see you.
Can't stand the memory of the scent of your perfume any longer,
something that seemed so hauntingly beautiful before I now find
repugnant.
And the memory of your voice
fills me with a hollow sense of dread instead of happiness like it used to.
I am still too filled with cowardly impulses myself
things I will have to encounter and release before I remember to stop
walling up and treating you like a rogue enemy.

And you are as ever
pervasive and insistent even now in your absence.
You keep popping up on the horizon, the tease of a buoy
when I feel like I have been treading water until my limbs turned to lead.
I want to stop swimming and give in to the impulse to drown.

But you are no buoy.
You are a mirage borne of desperation
and seasick longing.
You are the smell of shoreline
when I am lost in blue waters alone.

And the sharks my darling
are circling ever closer.
I can feel them - fins under foot
inquisitive noses nudging at my fragile spine.
It is a matter of time now
before the strike of their teeth
serrates through my tender skin.

And I wonder if everyone else can see it.
If it is as transparent to them as it is to me.
I am raw and aching for something I no longer desire.
Like a weeping raspberry longs for the skin it left
on the kiss of aggregate pavement.

I always was one to wear my heart on my sleeve.
Perhaps that is why I can't stop falling in love with the impossible
instead of what would be more real and therefore more wonderful.
It is the slow telling of this story,
our story,
and the cheap adolescent ending
over and over in endless repitition
that has caused me to feel so exhausted with this already.

I am tired of having to clean up this mess you left behind you
with diplomacy and grace.
I am tired of seeming stoic when I feel I am caving in.
I am tired of feeling like breaking down over this.

But I simply refuse.
I won't and so I can't.
I cannot let you take this from me,
my life, and my future
after all I have done to build it up
just because you decided to not to share it with me.


So I keep going out.
I keep staving off the tears
that strike from no where
traitors to their master
mercenaries for your cause.

And I keep avoiding you.
But you...you silly buoy
bob about, blinking in and out of sight.
hiccuping in and out of my heartbeat.
So I'll grab at the nearest jaws
unhinging below my dangling feet
and let it carry me down
where the sound of your voice
will be only a distant echo
for the need for the weakness of air
filling my lungs.