You shove your heart into my hands without seeing the look on my face, and I plead with you, telling you, "stop, no, I don't want it," but before I can get the words I'm choking on out you wrap my hands around it and expectations are wrapping around my throat, choking me, a dainty python invisible to anyone but me, and as I'm handed this thing I cannot handle, you do not notice the shackles that appear on my wrists.
I handed you my heart, once upon a time, you could not hold it with both hands, one was always preoccupied in delicately putting together a pungent smelling plant into tobacco wrappings, that ended in heady smelling smoke. I disappeared in that smoke and you never noticed. A magic trick, one day I was there, and then I was not. Poof.
You gaze at me longingly and I cannot tell you what you seek no longer exists, a girl seeking validation in nothing but a boy.
But you weren't nothing but a boy. You were- you were a god. That was then, but this is now. I worshipped you with reverence that you rejected. Too much, too much. The flowers I left in your wake littered the floor. I wanted a piece of me always with you.
A piece of me always was with you. Once upon a time. That was then, but this is now. A piece of my heart was carried with you, a sliver shaped like the crescent moon, clipped off like a discarded fingernail, cared for naught by me, but a hope that it would be cared for by you, I was nothing, you were everything, my everything, the night sky my darkness, you the stars that chased everything away, your arms enveloping me familiar constellations that would guide the way home.
And then you were put up with the sun, a blazing pedestal, so bright, so bright, outshining everything in view, until I realized you were only human, and by then the blistering heat had evaporated the little bit of me left in the little bit of you. Too little, too late, you never noticed.
Invisible girl, always, for better or for worse, your invisible girl, now you see me, now you don't, now I hide in your chest, burying my face in the familiar dark, now I sit in the corner, while you silently puff, a statue, silence is very becoming, no words pass between us but a joint does.
Bodies writhing, everything nonlinear, I think of the way I prettied myself up for you, splattering red across my lips, wanting to negate a picture of innocence, and climbed onto the bed with you. Sleeping, I wanted to impress You, hastily climbing onto you, leaving red lipstick marks everywhere. You woke up in a daze, and I sunk myself onto you. I wasn't ready, the slickness of myself barely enough. It hurt, a bit. But it hurt, for you, and I sunk onto you and endured it, wanted to please You, to be a picture perfect girl.
I think of the first time I sunk onto you, and how wondrous that felt, and then I think of how rushed everything was, later, faster, quicker. You want to do that position I hate, I endure it at first, it isn't a good churning and feels like everything is spinning and you say you're almost finished and I grit my teeth and it isn't as wonderful as everyone says it is, and I think of the other times I saw stars and it was better than everyone says, and then I think of how later on I would never do that position and how when I said it hurt you turned your back for a second with crossed arms and a frown with my legs still spread wide, a sacrifice to you, the way I'd wince and you wouldn't notice and my moan of pain made you go faster, harder, unpleasant. I think of other times when you went slow, torturously slow, touching me in a way that set my veins on fire and paid attention to everything from the part of my lips to the sound of my heartbeat to the way I looked at you and the times when you didn't turn your back and looked near ready to cry. "I hurt you, I'm sorry," when I assured you it was fine and it had been my choice but you still apologized nonetheless, wanting to soothe my pain and wishing to take it onto yourself instead.
And then I think of the words, "you're over all the time," and how they echoed in my head and how I felt you drop my heart and the thud of it hitting the earth and every time I hear them it seems to repeat, the versions of my heart a never ending Matryoshka doll.
And "I just want a little less of you," and how I did it then, I shrank, and you begged me to come back and I never could, and how you later on acted like you would sacrifice yourself for me, if you could, and today, I believe you would, the way you gather me into your arms and say "I love you", I have no doubt that you do. You want to take those words back, you punish yourself for them everyday, but they float into my face, little notes the same as the ones I used to slide under the bathroom door when you were taking too long, "I miss you", "I love you", and "hurry up", the daydreams and long talks full of silences and silences full of long talks, like today, the finality of everything, and how everything and I mean, everything reverberated through me like a plucked violin string and I could feel it, deep in my core.
I recall the days full of pleasure, writhing at your hands, and days where you forgot I was capable of that, rushing, rushing, rushing, and I endured, and in the beginning, even if you treated me invisibly, the occasional butterfly brush of your lips against my cheek, and your arms around me, for the first meeting ever, happy, Happy, Happy, euphoria, misery, misery, misery, happy, happy, all at your hands, and the day I realized you weren't a god, but a man.
And how much you wish you could change things, but again, you aren't a god, you're a man, and a frayed string eventually breaks from its tether.
And maybe its a blessing in disguise, holding onto nothing with clenched fists only ends up with crescent shapes in your hand, the same shape as the sliver of my heart that evaporated in yours, but I know.
I don't need that piece anymore, I don't need someone to hold it anymore.
I only fell out of love because my heart became someone new. I became someone new. No longer the story of a heartbroken girl and a god she believed could fix her, the story of a girl, with a heart, frayed and tattered, perhaps battered but still beating, walking away from a boy, after handing back his heart, placing bandages where she could, and whispered apologies where she could not, hoping her absence could heal them if nothing else.
And that is the end of us today.