This isn’t a poem.
This is two a.m. in the backseat of your car,
picking my heart out of the upholstery.
It’s a trick of the light:
shapes in the darkness.
It’s the monster under your bed that
followed you into your twenties.
This is what your lungs look like
after a lifetime of smoking.
This is cigarettes through a stoma.
This is what you do with the Lonely
when it pats you on the back
and holds your hair—
when the hangover has nothing to do
with the alcohol.
You make room for it.
Lonely crawls in bed with you and
you pull back the covers.
What else are you supposed to do?
Nobody told me Lonely was this ugly.
Nobody told me Lonely looked like me.
Nobody told me Lonely and I would get good and cozy.
That days can feel like months
can feel like steam.
I’m writing a letter to my teenaged self:Stay away from this one and that one
and this one. Trust me,
it’ll be easier that way.
How many years have I carried my heart
like a coin purse? Handed it out
like loose change?
Heart in a sandwich bag—
school science project—
how many licks to the center
of a tragic backstory?
I didn’t wallow in it;
I made friends with the Lonely.
I walked it out to the water.
I held its hand when it tried to drown me.
I painted on the bravest face I know.
I survived heartache by the handful—
so, no. Hard as you tried to hurt me,
you’re not special.
You’re the flavor of the week and trust me—
I’ve had better.
This isn’t a poem,
this is digging you out of my bones
with a carving knife.
I don’t know much about love,
but it’s not supposed to hurt.
It’s not supposed to hurt.
turnnoffyourmind
jacobvanloon
discoholicmusic
