I Google “how to get over a broken heart”
12,200,000 results in .76 seconds
I think about your hand between my thighs
get a bottle of whiskey
and tell myself I will never call you sober
One morning I woke up in your bed and you weren’t there
One morning I woke up in your bed and you were there
See, that’s the thing about being in love with a ghost
Ghosts make the worst tenants, I didn’t ask for this
I didn’t ask you to haunt me with the way you smack your lips after a drag of your cigarette, and the next one, and the next one. I didn’t want to remember the songs, the music playing in the background, us, the main performance, dancing in your sheets. I touch your forehead with my forehead. It’s sweaty. I find out that ghosts can sweat. Ghosts can tell you they like your new tattoos but all you hear is “There’s a reason I left after your first one”. If I got a tattoo for every time I thought about your lips they would run out of ink.
You’re like a foot of snow after the weatherman said showers
and I’m the mess they clean up in the morning.

My mother was a writer.
I remember her,
papers spread out upon a bed sheet in the sand,
stacked pebbles protecting her work from the wind
as I made drip-castles at the water's edge
and braided crowns from wild poppies.
I would run to her so she could
rub grape sunscreen into my sandy shoulders
and I asked her once,
“Mama,
is that poetry?”
and she said “No little one,
you are poetry,
this only tries to be.”
and I thanked her,
and ran back to the water
to search for flat stones to skip,
and thought no more of poetry.

When you hear her name
I could see the color of your eyes changed
I could see your smile faded quickly,
And your laugh were silenced in a second

When you see her
I could still see how you would lost your breath,
I could still see how you would stop holding my hand,
And your body shaken did not know what to do

But I know
I know you have been hurt
I know you were still with her even if you were with me
And in the nights you were hoping for her to call you back

I know
You would walk away from me if she asked you
You would hurt me if she wanted you
I was no one, no one but a temporary shelter

Your body left your mind in her, and who am I to take them away from her
Maybe your physical realm is here, but you are still with her
I was foolish to even try to compete with her, hoping that I would win you
When in fact, there was no competition

*She has won you

I am becoming so sickeningly
happy, and now all I ever want to
do is dance to the music that your words
sing to me.

Silence says much more
Than useless words we have said
Many times before

I keep trying to bring myself back
From wherever my mind is
And put myself back in my body,
Back in this world.
But it doesn't seem to be working.

I wander outside
And name everything
I can see or hear.
In an attempt to make some connection
To the physical world around me.
But I can't.

I run my fingers through grass,
Study leaves closely,
Stick my hands in frigid water,
But still nothing is able
To bring my mind out of the hole
It's fallen into.

Talking to someone,
Being around people,
Maybe that would force me out
Of my mind and into real life.
It's a shame I'm so alone though.

The only other thing
I can think of
That could maybe help me
Reconnect with reality
Would bring more disturbance
To my already distressed state.

But it's so tempting