I always thought
(always dreamed, always hoped, always wished)
that if you could've found me,
you would've.
I know if our positions were switched
I would have tried,
I would have never stopped trying.
But now I'm wondering
if you even fucking tried?
Were you so mired in your grief
and persecution that you forgot
I was a person?
Were you so wrapped up in your dreams
and ambitions that you forgot
that you were mine?
I don't know.
I'll never know.
I can't ask and I can't go back.
But you—
you went back.
Without me.
You went home without me.
And it's okay if you don't feel
like that about me,
but you were always my home.
I would have lived inside your chest.
Would have protected your fragile heart and birds' lungs.
I looked at you once,
after a fight I can't remember,
and thought:
If I did this every day
for the rest of my life,
I think I would be happy.
Because if I couldn't protect you from inside,
I could at least protect you from outside.
Where's your fucking shield now?
Did you hang it up in your nice new home,
back home, like a trophy?
As a memorial to the battles you erased?
I hope every picture of me falls off your walls.
I hope the glass breaks and you think of me when you step on it,
and you think of me when you bleed,
and remember that the reason I'm not there to clean you up
is that YOU left ME behind.
I don't like feeling this way.
This doubt feels toxic,
like swallowing lead.
I don't like doubting you.
Because it tells me I was a sucker.
You were always my weakest link,
they could strike me where that love was
and I would unravel.
And it was cruel of you to unravel me without a strike.
To remove yourself from my life.
To be there and be there and be there
and then be gone.
I still dream in your language.
Still have nightmares where you've seen what I've done.
And the worst part about waking up
is that I can't call you.
I can't tap your shoulder.
I can't confess
(like you always used to)
and you won't forgive me.
(I always thought your religion was overrated.
It gave you so very little.
Made you beg for scraps at G-d's table.
Put you at the mercy of the universe's cruelty.
But I paid my forgiveness in blood
because it was for deeds paid for with blood.
I gave you so much fucking blood.
So many tears.
So much fucking sweat.
And you aren't even here to forgive me my worst.
I never understood your religion
and I understand it less now.)
I still look for your shadows
in our house that you picked.
The one with the spacious bathrooms
("so you won't have to feel trapped"),
and the big kitchen
("for all of our friends"),
and the extra bedroom
("for nights it hurts more to be with me")—
I haven't slept in our bedroom since,
I lie there and wonder if it was
ever more than a rest stop for you?—
and the closets
("for your skeletons"),
and the yard
("so you can remember the sun")—
but weren't you the sun?
weren't you every star in my night sky?—
and the fireplace
("so you don't have to be cold again"),
and the godawful tacky curtains
(that used to make me laugh,
but now they just make me notice
the absence of yours).
I still call your name into the void
from which you'll never return
and it still breaks me every time
you don't answer my call.
And now I see, love,
every little thing that shattered you
when I fell,
now I understand
why you buried yourself
with me in ice.
But I don't understand,
I understand less,
because I would give anything to get you back,
and not even another miracle will bring you home.
The miracles were never mine,
I couldn't will fights out of broken bone,
the miracles were all yours.
And I guess the real final mirace,
in your series of miracles
(taking the chance
hearing what happened
saving me
waking up in the morning
seeing what happened
saving me (the second time)
(and the third and fourth and fifth times)
having me in your arms),
was that you got to go back
and strand me here alone
in a world that could never not show
the wounds I left in it,
in a world that will never recover
from what I did to it,
in a world that moved on without me
(like you),
in a world that doesn't say "I love you"
in your voice,
in a world without YOU.
You decided that a you without me was not worth bearing,
but assumed a me without you was not worth burying.