here's how it happens
the morning after
you reach into the drawer
where the your t-shirts live
to find it austere
you'll shrug because
you're still drunk
& you can't remember
when last it was
that you had something wet
or how long it's been
since you made the floorboards blush
or why the carpet is upset
who wouldn't be
the contents to the upended ashtray
strewn around the apartment
resemble the aftermath
of the smallest war
to ever take place in norfolk
some midnight thief
must've made off with the lighter
because it isn't in
any of your favorite spots
maybe you chucked it
along with a hundred other things
that make noise when they land
in the neighbors yard
you won't remember putting
the refrigerator's belongings
in the bathtub
or scrawling a buzzard
on the bedroom door
but then again who would
you'll pretend it's spring again
before putting on your winter coat
to go out front with a cigarette
in your mouth
you'll hope for a passing stranger
to *** a light from
or drag yourself to the corner
with couch cushion change
to buy a new lighter
and on your way
you won't bother looking back
this is just another day
on eggshells for no reason
another november
choking on birthday candles
on your way home
you step over beer cans
the kind you fell in love with
and wonder who
had the last laugh last night
or if anyone said a word at all
it might've been another
moment of clarity
it might have been some idiot savant
any adjective that feels like home
anything that keeps you thirsty

You bury your head in the bathtub to drown out the screaming, you don’t realize until your mother finds you that the screaming was your own.

There’s beauty, there’s magnificence, there’s splendor, and then there’s you. Sometimes I’m not 100% sure if you’re even human, or if you’re this superior race slumming it with all of us apes. I thought I knew what it meant to be in love until you told me about the 3 times you laughed so hard you cried. You ask me if I’m happy with you and I think you’re kidding because, c’mon, you’re the best thing I’ve ever had. I was falling through space when you found me. Well, I say found, but it’s more like we collided. You were Haley’s comet and I was blinded by your light and I stumbled into your path. If I believed in God I would say that he wanted us to be together. Sometimes, late at night, I imagine a bunch of Gods and Goddesses up in the sky fighting over you. I think that’s why we have thunder storms. Zeus is screaming at Aphrodite that he must have you because something so beautiful could only be his son, but Hades is trying to explain why he deserves you because you are worth more than anything money could buy. But I think that I deserve you the most, because even though I’m not a goddess, my love for you is pure and untouchable. I cannot give you the world, I cannot grace the earth with a permanent overcast for you, I cannot make all of your dreams come true. I cannot do anything but stand by you and hold your hands even when arthritis has taken over. I’d move mountains if the sun was in your eyes. I’d change the seasons if the temperature made you uncomfortable. I’d breathe underwater for you any day. But I know you, and I can see how pure your soul is, and I know you could never ask for any of those things. But you deserve those things, you deserve every good thing the Universe has ever created. You are the best thing the Universe has ever created.

The burden of the messes you left weighs heavy on my chest. I think my heart is beginning to slow down because frankly I am not strong enough to stand up straight anymore. I cannot remember good times because you are so rotten that you have eroded every memory of you into a nightmare. My preconceived notion of the pain dying with my love for you was wrong. I am suffering more now than I ever was before. Without the smoke screen of affection and adoration, I see you as who you really are. I see every fight, every hole in the wall, every ignored plea to stop as what they really are. You are foul. You are disgusting. I fear my hatred for you is beginning to rot my heart, too. And that is the last thing I want. I want to be able to love and accept the love I am given without your voice in my head telling me I don’t deserve this, any of this. I may not deserve happiness but I know I at least deserve to rid my brain of every thought I’ve ever had of you. You tried to tell me that I never really loved you because if you really love someone, you never stop. But I know now that is not true in the least bit. I am no longer bound to your disease by some asinine cliche or the belief that I have to always love you because I promised you I would when I was fifteen. Your name has become synonymous with death. Everything we once had, has long expired. There is a tombstone underneath my bed with your name on it, and with time it will collect dust and inevitably be forgotten, just as it should be. I hold no obligation to you, not even the you I thought you were, the one I made up in my head. It’s not that I broke my promises to you, it’s that there was no way of keeping them without killing whatever was left of me. You are an appendix, a tonsil, a fake friend, an extra piece of cake. I never needed you, though at one point I may have thought I did. In two years I will have forgotten your middle name and what street you live on. You are not vital, you are not a necessity, you are not more important than me, and my biggest mistake was ever believing you were. I can talk **** on you up down and sideways, criss cross and backwards, but I know there are things that I can’t change. The things you did to me can never be undone, but they do not have to be redone or relived either. I don’t have to carry these bruises around any longer. I’m not going to carry these bruises around any longer.

I thought what we had was love but I’m pretty sure love is supposed to make you smile more than it is supposed to make you cry. I cannot hate you for not knowing how to love me the way I deserve because you are a 16 year old boy, not Romeo. I think if maybe we were older, wiser, and more mature maybe things could’ve worked out but I’m pretty ******* glad they didn’t because who wants to be stuck on their first love forever? It isn’t romantic, it’s Hell. I’m really sorry because I know we had the potential to be really good together, but I’m not quite sure I would like myself if I was what you wanted. I’m trying to find a happy medium. I cannot hate you but I cannot love you, and I know you will never truly be out of my life. You always try to say that “maybe one day”, but I’m counting on a different “one day” from someone else. Though you will always have a special place reserved in my heart, I do not love you the way that I used to and I don’t think I ever will again. I hope you find happiness, I hope you fall in love and smile everyday, just not with me. You gave me a year of your time and we never should have tried for more. First love does not mean best love and just because I promised to love you forever when I was 15 doesn’t mean that I have to. Not all promises can be kept.