Later that night

I held an atlas in my lap,

Ran my fingers across the whole world

and whispered,

Where does it hurt?

It answered

Everywhere

Everywhere

Everywhere.

- Warsan Shire

We spent all our emphasis

On words to wound the soul

With no regards

To what would fill the holes.

The kindest thing I said

Was when I didn’t say a word,

I never asked for you to stay

Because I knew how much that hurt.

Now if it’s all the same to you

I think I’ll bury this,

And bury myself too.

I only kept my body warm for you to use.

I birthed breath to grief I couldn’t understand, that knew only authenticity as my melancholy hands began to shake beneath the weight of something you had once entrusted me to hold. In growing old, I only long to be consoled.

But instead I have been left as just a vessel for my aches; 

a crooked spine that buckled once, 

but never thought to heal the break.

Now nostalgia comes home once a week, drunk and delusional, slurring her speech. She talks about "trying again", slumped heavy on the frame of the door to the room where I wait.

I barely said a word at all, scared to tell you how I felt.

Has my memory decayed? I don’t remember falling into love and it kills me every day. I hope I never fucking hear your name again. Carry me, lifeless and afraid, back to our bed.

But truth be told it never felt like we were laying together sleeping. Only ever that my broken body had been crushed between your sheets, like dead flowers pressed between the pages of a journal you don’t care to read any more, you just flick through it when you’re bored. The only time you dare to call is to remind me of something that we never were. 

Were we anything at all?

No heaven without hell beneath, 

in misery without you and me. 

Your memory won’t let me sleep, 

I never thought I’d be so weak.

Now lonely is as lonely was, 

no more than a memory. 

I can’t deny it any more, 

our love is dead and buried. 

Senseless, I’ve been caring for the house that we called home.

Hell was loving you at all my dear, 

because now I’m alone.

How much do you remember about those summers we spent together? Because I don’t seem to be able to recall all those things I thought that I’d miss, your perfume and your sun kissed skin, turns out they meant nothing all along. I was haunted by the emptiness that filled the hole you left, a grave I still can’t bring myself to visit yet. Though I won’t be losing sleep, I still refuse to forget, it took me so long to admit we were dead;

But we were dead.

You buried it in the back yard of a house that we built with our bare hands where you said we’d grow old together. I felt safe there, I knew every crooked frame and every creaking stair. I could have stayed my whole fucking life, but time was never a friend of mine.

I got so scared that I disappeared into my head for 8 lonely years and it killed me, but it hurt you too, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry but you weren’t there when I needed you most. I felt like I was a ghost of someone you used to love, but I was never enough to save us.

Are you happy? 

Are you happy?

So tell me is it serious between you and him?

I hope to god that he makes you happy, 

I hope I never hear your name again.

Now the home we made is nothing more than a house where we fucked and we ate but never fell in love. You’re sleeping in the bed we made, with somebody else. Are you happy? Are you fucking happy?

So thoroughly convinced that the product of persistence was a love that I’d been told of when I was just a kid, I was wed to my misery in the hope that at the ceremony you’d interject, but you never did. Now seven years on, bitter and resentful, I still contemplate what I did to deserve the glimpses of affection you used to distract me, as you were filing my teeth to the nerve.

I know you were the death of me, but still in spite of everything, I hope that you are finding sleep while I still lay awake. And though my throat is burning now it’s still so quiet in the house; the emptiness you occupied is more than I can take.

Tell me, are you ashamed? ’Cause I felt alone and you watched as I decayed, I slipped through your hands as I faded. I’ve tried to forget, but your love will make a museum of me yet, I just hope you know how long I’ve waited.

Though reservoirs of self-disgust have swollen up inside my lungs, Pulmonary Oedema is no substitute for love that once lay its head upon my chest, a comfort cradled motionless; but I have come undone, my love is not enough.

I know it’s hard to watch your light fade from my eyes, but darling, for my sake, you’ve got to let it die. My weathered hands have dug this grave enough, it’s time for us to bury our love.

Tell me, are you ashamed? ’Cause I felt alone and you watched as I decayed, I slipped through your hands as I faded. I’ve tried to forget, but your love will make a museum of me yet, it kills me to say I’m still waiting.