Why am I made to feel guilty for having loved him?
It wasn't my fault that he wasn't who he said he was,
and it didn't make my love any less genuine.

Why do I have to brunt all of this shame
for my innocent first real attempt at a safe love?
How was that fair to me?
All I wanted was to love and be loved.

But no, I had to pull myself together,
and immediately turn to shunning,
mocking, and avoiding him,
not even a month after he left me;
I had to repress how I had felt before to show face.

No one else had loved him as I did,
I was the odd one out,
and so I had to "hate" him too.
I still loved him; it wasn't fair.

He ruined everything
and I couldn't say anything about it,
stuck in the battle of knowing
I had to stand for justice and condemnation
of a man who had last held me in his arms
months before.

His bad behavior, in turn,
stole the grieving process from me.
I had to skip all the steps and lock it away
to protect others, to be strong,
and it wasn't fair.

I'm tired of feeling miserable
for having these good memories of him,
and it isn't my fault that he did bad things;
I just wish this never happened at all.

No one warned me about healing,
and that when you begin to let go,
it means working through all the things
you ignored along the way:
every weeping wound,
every halted, furious scream,
every memory you tried to forget,
and even the things you never knew
you'd felt in the first place.

To let go of everything that no longer serves,
I have to go back in time
and tell myself how it is all okay now,
and hope that will be enough
to set me free again.

Ask me to fall in love?
Love is a sickness,
and should it leave such scars
as it had the last time I was afflicted,
I might shrivel up and die.

Dare it to leave wounds without sutures?
Skin without scratches?
Bodies without bruises?

Two afflictions of the mind are unbearable:
Both of two in love
And the sadness that sullies it.

Distance has become my new lover,
and I cower behind her,
I beg her not to let me get hurt like before,
Lest I fall sick again.

The thought of being in love with anything else feels
Intense,
Like fingers digging much too far
Into my skin,
Drawing the deep oxygenated blood to the surface.

Foreign bodies with foreign bodies,
unknown hands with unknown hands,
we said we are in love together,
but we don't know where we stand;
such is the torture
of ghosts loving ghosts,
you never dared to tell me who you were,
nor I shared with you who I am.

Look at us now,
just two shadows in love,
no wonder when the two converged,
they slipped right through each other.

The same mouth that kisses,
Damns you,
The same arms you run to
Swing back,
And the ones you love the most
Will hurt you,
It's all a part of the plan.

I don't make art anymore.
It's so tedious and eats up a part of me
that I can barely hold up.

I'd rather just be a resting body,
but that route seems to cause just the same
discomfort.

Tired, irritable; I want to do as much
as I do not,
and I feel like all my time goes to waste.

My reflection isn't me;
I feel like I am five
years younger than I am.
My art is fueled by the discordance
which makes it so hard to make or write.

I fluctuate:
okay to awful,
to make to give up,
I'm me, who is she?
I don't make art anymore.