You left the taste of your lips in my mouth
and the smell of your skin on my mattress,
You left your words taped to these pens,
I wonder if that’s why I can’t stop writing about you-
This pen still remembers your hands on its body,
The ink remembers your fingers,
The cap your touch,
No, those are not the same things.
Your words have bled into the ink,
And now it’s all spilling,
Slowly.
You left your music in my playlists-
Sent a cutter a song about addiction, asshole,
But my nightmares weren’t having nightmares anymore,
They were just sad, the poor things,
The monsters and the teeth that I curated under my bed,
They were all covered in tears, they wouldn’t stop crying.
No, the floodwater wasn’t clear, but it also wasn’t mud,
It was the inky red of spilled blood,
Do you know how many bloodstains I’ve had to clean up
off my bedroom floor?
Do you even care?
I’m setting fire to my head now,
Or maybe it was my pillows I set fire to,
I just didn’t want them to smell like you.
And now I’ve spent more money on condoms and alcohol,
And concealer to hide hickeys,
Than any sixteen year old should have the right to-
No, I don’t have the best coping mechanisms,
but that’s something you already knew.
At least you kissed your knuckles before splitting my heart in two,
At least you got that right.
Is this second-person point of view accusatory enough for you?
You, you, you, it’s all you.
Am I getting under your skin yet?
Am I still there? Did I ever leave?
Or do you still read our conversations from time to time,
Look for me in the hallway and canteen lines,
Or break a little when you see me smile?
Catch my eye, and see our history play out in double time?
I can’t wait to get drunk this weekend
and have an excuse to message you again,
See, I don’t deserve you in sunlight,
Daytime sheds too much light on my sins,
And I think you have a girlfriend now, not that it matters-
No, I already loved you in guilt,
In that secret space between
Alcohol and 2AM,
And old habits are hard to break.
But no, I don’t quite love you,
No, I don’t quite miss you,
Now you’re just a bad habit-
You’re just a scratch I can’t quite itch,
An ache, burrowed in some bone the doctors can’t reach,
A piece of fat dissolving in the bloodstream.
There, I’ve said it now.
There’s nothing left in these pens now,
I can throw them away now,
I’ve sucked them all dry, the ink’s out.
- aisha s. | half lovesong, half confession (pt ii)
