If he makes you feel like you are just the sum of your flesh and bones, run away. Run as fast as you can and do not dare look back. The rush of cold air will light your lungs on fire anyway, but keep running until your legs give out and you find yourself somewhere far away.  Once you leave the past behind, you are no longer a girl with stringy hair and beady eyes who fell asleep every night with her throat burning of choked-back tears and missing him. You are no longer the empty girl who counted seconds waiting for a sign to stay. You are, and always will be, greater than the sum of the stars in the sky. You are the bird's song and the rain's hum. You are every seedling sprouting in an open field, but you yourself are responsible for your new beginning. Do not let anyone tell you that you are equal to the scars that scatter your skin or the empty face staring back at you in the mirror. When you finally find yourself somewhere far, far away, I hope you also find who you really are.

it's been one whole year
one whole revolution around the sun
365 days of wondering why
you told me i was your everything
but you left it all behind

how could you leave everything behind?

you left me with empty hands
after i gave you the whole world
but i am not your sun
and you do not revolve around me like you used to

one whole year
of broken promises and mumbled friendship
and memorizing each other
like the backs of our hands
even though i'm not sure if
i still want to remember you
anymore

you're the throbbing pain
and also the heavenly relief
and even though i cannot stand the thought of you,
you still take up the most space
in my mind

she was a novel
with twists and turns
the kind shoved behind
library bookshelves
and under heartsick beds

she spun words
into velvet
and they seeped
right through her lips
and onto his lonely skin

and oh, how she loved him
with the passion of a sunset
and the bravery of a child
and her words craved him
even more than she did

he was the reason why
her eyes strained a torturous fog
and her words clogged her throat
and a dozen unsent letters
desperately cluttered her room
and her words weren't velvet,
they were just word
and just like her,
they were not worth loving anymore

you were not a verse
or a stanza
or a meaningless jumble
of half-hearted words
and you were not just
the crossed-out name
in the back of my book

you were the ray of light
wedged between the pain
and how the colorful feelings
that decorated my mind
could never be put into words
no matter how hard i tried

you were never smudged gray
or ink stains on skin
and you were more than the substance
that spilled itself onto paper
because to me, you meant so much more
than a collection of words,

you were the story