[jankywhale]

In the winter every year I run away. I do not remember the last time I stayed. My mother tells me I am like a bird. I tell her, mom, I don’t want to be like anything. I tell her all of my bones are broken. I tell her about the time I died by myself. I don’t know how long they have been like this. I tell her to notice me. Tell me everything about the sun. Why every morning it is still there. I am stuck in place and all of this is here and now.

[jankywhale]

I didn’t think I could be happy without you. Who am I to put so much of myself in your hands?

[jankywhale]

If people were planets, I’d miss you in the way the earth moves around the sun.

The sun is holding everything together. I will love you from all the way over here.

I will love you over billions of years, silently, achingly. I wish I could pull you closer to me, but I am afraid you would burn.

Lately, I wish a lot of things were different. One of the harder parts I have been dealing with: living with regret. I want to undo things that I can’t take back.

They have happened, and I have done them, and that’s that. Life moves on. People go to work. Babies are born. People die. And I am here, wishing that things had been different.

If I could, I would put a big pair of headphones over the earth and play you the sweetest song. I do not want to choose for you. I have chosen enough. I have chosen too much. Now, it is your turn to choose.

Which song would you play? Would it be one of ours? One that makes you cry? I wonder what it is like to see from your eyes. How beautiful it must be.

Truth: I have thought about you every day. I think of small things. I think of the movements in between, how I knew it was ending, how I wanted so badly to hold on just a little longer.

I wanted to memorize every facet of your face, every divot in your rib. I wanted and wanted, so much that it confused me. It hurts more holding on to something than it does to let it free.

Yet, the weight of your absence is like no other. The earth moved from orbit. The axis of my world has shifted, in ways both good and bad. The sun is so beautiful. I can cry without it becoming me.

Who have I become? I wish you could know me now. I wish we could pass by each other, and I would look at you with warmth and smile, remembering.

The summer with the birds by your apartment, all of them singing in unison. The shared smiles from across the room, across the couch, across the pillow. Your big laugh, the way it took up so much space. When I hear my voice, sometimes it sounds like yours.

The love you had for me, I know it was there, I saw it. I have witnessed something so beautiful, I know it was rare. It was real. It was real. It was real.

[jankywhale]

I miss you, it kills me

[jankywhale]

There is something sinister about losing yourself- only to find I have been here the whole time. Am I my own ghost? Am I haunting myself? I can’t get over it. The way the future played out before me like a play, something I could pray to, and now there is no God. The plans that never happened. Where did they go? Did they disappear the moment you left, or were they never there at all? I can’t get over it. I can’t get over it. Where did the time go?

[jankywhale]

I’m thinking about the way

the space you left behind

felt more familiar than you.

Everything is dripping in absence

but I am still reminded,

it feels like you are almost here.

I don’t have enough words

in my mouth anymore.

I don’t have enough ways

to say

I hated the way you did what you did

but I understand.

I am opening my arms to the hurt you have caused

and

I am loving you anyway.

[dailyclassicart]

Vincent van Gogh - "Field with Poppies" (1889)

[jankywhale]

This, Too

I am used to the plucking of my feathers.

The offering of fruit, the

soft way his hand keeps

grabbing for more-

How much of myself have I given away

for the sake of making him comfortable-

of making myself

smaller.

Maybe it sits somewhere on a shore

In a pile melting together

I hope the fire of it

warms him.

[jankywhale]

It’s getting easier. I’ve stopped crying at work. I take my time folding my laundry. I don’t rush when I have to cook dinner. My cabinets stay closed. I still wake up to the sound of the clock, but it sounds different when I hear it by myself. I go to work, try to understand meaning, try to understand myself, but I find that I’ve only grown into someone I never would have known had I not left. It’s been really hard to sit with that. How do we forgive ourselves for all the things we did not become? How do I forgive myself for not knowing what I couldn’t see? I don’t have an answer for it. Forgiveness is suffering, isn’t it? Or is suffering forgiveness? I am suffering, you have hurt me, I am seeing the pain you have caused and I am telling you it’s okay. I am telling you I don’t blame you. I am telling you it’s okay to not see what isn’t in front of you. I am drinking the air. I am removing my hands from my eyes.

[jankywhale]

The writing helps. I’m not sure if it does, actually, but

I don’t have to take cold showers anymore.

It took me a while. I’m not sure how long, because

three months have passed and I still see you

everywhere. I asked for a sign today. The first book I

picked at the store, had your name on the back.

I saw the crackers your mom used to buy me,

I’ve never seen them there before.

Last week, I had a dream you were sitting next to me.

I don’t remember how it started or where it ended. It

was simply that. Sitting next to you.

If this does not spell it out for you, my love,

I miss you.

I miss you.

I miss you.

There is nothing more I can say than this.

[jankywhale]

There is a smaller version of me on the inside-

the person who is still capable of missing someone

that once burned her so badly.

she is craving, aching,

wanting you again.

the corners of my skin crack and peel

away, skin torn from flesh,

flesh torn from rib,

from cloth,

from breast.

Her body writhing

in tune to the heartbeat

in her open palm

i am missing something

i do not know anymore.

[jankywhale]

I will love you even under the weight of your absence

[jankywhale]

Bird flew to my ceiling

Flew so far and high I can’t see it anymore.

Sometimes I feel like that bird.

Sometimes I feel like flying away.

There is a bird somewhere, far away,

And it keeps rising, and rising,

Until it isn’t here at all

[jankywhale]

I love you like the sun loves to burn slowly, longingly, over millions of years.

Love you like a glass of water in the middle of the

night. Love you like my best friend.

Love you like, “you should get some sleep”.

Love you like everything I have. Love you like everything I will be.

Love you past, present, future. I love you like a wicked thing. I love you with my nails out.

My teeth bared. I am licking your wounds and you don’t need to say thank you.

Love you like a lost thing. Love you like second grade summer.

[jankywhale]

Happy Thanksgiving (My heart remembers the shape of your palm. I still love you)

[jankywhale]

I am learning still

to be alone to

listen to the sound of my own heartbeat

instead of yours- unsteady.

Mine is a song

of birds flying

outside of my window.

They dip, and rise, and dip

again. Again-

they fly south. I

am learning to feel the birds

fly away from my window.

How badly I have wanted to be

wanted. How much I

have sacrificed to

only go away.

[jankywhale]

I am sleeping with my light on again. I let the TV play in my living room. I have not made dinner in three weeks. I have done four loads of laundry. Yes, I am seeing you everywhere. My plant is leaning towards the window, towards the sun, where everything is warm and right. I want to fly out of the window with it. I want to learn how to be a person again. My mother tells me my heart is beating, I am here, I will be okay. I don’t know how to tell her the truth. I don’t know how to tell her my hands are cracked. The skin on my eyelids bright pink. I see the sunset and think of nothing. Snow is falling for the first time today and you should have been there. You should have seen it.