you were my forever once
until you ripped it from my hands
and gave it to someone else

now even joy has your fingerprints on it

i am loved again
by someone who deserves me

but when they say marriage
i hear your voice not theirs

my body remembers
what my mind begs to forget

i want to say yes
without thinking of you

i want to wear white
without feeling like a ghost inside it

how do i love someone new
with a heart you made afraid of love itself

i know you do not deserve this power

but trauma is not about who deserves what
it is about what remains after the fire

As much as I tried to erase you from my world
Faint marks of you still remain
Maybe it was someone eating your favorite meal
Or someone wearing your backpack
Maybe it was the ticks I developed
From watching you remain broken
Sometimes I am reminded of the season that was us,
And wish it had passed sooner

Maybe it was the words I used to say to you
Or the floor upon which our bodies aligned
The glint of you lip piercing,
The coldness of metal upon my tongue,
Remains as I gaze down
At the sight of the crime

Because it was a crime
What you did to me
Addiction was inevitable
You kissed me in doses,
Satiated me,
Gave me just enough for the moment
Yet not enough to last

I pray that the next time I
Listen to a song
Eat a meal
Or entangle my body with someone else
That you never appear in my mind

Cause if I see you again,
In mind, spirit, or body,
I will be reminded of the remainder of your wreckage
I may have removed the bullets,
But the shrapnel still remains

for over a year I was in love with you,
And I thought we were swans,
perfect and forever,
but, really,
someone else was your swan,
now that I've stepped away,
I realize maybe I NEVER was YOUR swan

I've always told my family about you,
how beautiful, how funny, how smart,
but my favorite topic was your heart,
how kind, how loving, how empathetic,
And, always emphasize how large the size of your heart was,
how substainable, how extensive, how significant,
but it took me months to finally see,
how blind, how dumb, how it inattentive,
your heart was too big,
it could fit her, too.

Sometimes I wish you were a bad person,
As if you'd have hit or yelled,
Or tried to make me feel poorly about myself,
Or do anything wrong at the slightest,
But you never did,
Rather, you had showed me what love is,
Writing notes that I still read some nights,
Holding my hands or kissing my lips,
All the small things you done for me,
Make me miss you more everyday.
But I know if you were a bad person,
It wouldn't hurt so bad anymore.

its coming up on a year
a year without you
longer than I had with you to begin with
and I can say I don't think of you often
in passing more than anything
and i feel little about it

I know one day it will be my wedding day
someday, as lace cinches my waist and vows hover in the air,
as i get ready you’ll cross my mind
not from longing, just a glitch in memory’s muscle
curiosity killed the cat but I’ve been dead all my life
so I’ll wonder where life has taken you
and I’ll be glad I don’t know for sure, glad you’re not at the end of the altar waiting for me
and maybe I’ll have the children I would never have been able to have with you
and they’ll like poetry, and I’ll think of you again
I’ll teach my boy to not act the way you did, the way I hope by then you don't either

I’ve come to accept that thinking of you will happen
you shaped me as a person and six months can hold a lot of weight, turns out
I’ve stopped worrying about subconscious meanings
I think of you not because you still hurt me, not because I’ve not moved on
I think of you the way i do about those mornings when I was seven and watched the tv all alone  just to let time pass
in the way i think about that one mean girl from middle school, or that pretty girl from high school
in the way i think about my grandpa, the memories few and blurry and probably half made up
in the way i think about my first job, a lesson of bitter taste followed by so much better
in the way i think about every other boy that came and hurt and went

She is the reason
I count the exits before I sit down.
3 windows, 2 doors, 4 friends to go talk to,
I fold myself small in crowded rooms.
I let my shadow walk ahead—
just in case she is waiting behind me.

She is the reason
my name sounds foreign in my own mouth.
It used to be mine,
warm, whole, sure.
Now it is just a noise I do not trust.
“Matthew” she’d call.

I hate hearing that sound

She—
(is the reason I mistake love for danger)
(is the reason I taste irony in "I miss you")
(is the reason I do not know how to love)

She is the reason
I flinch before I am touched.
I flinch before I am hurt.
I flinch before there is even a reason to.

A hug should be easy, not torture.

She is the reason I can’t say "no."
No is a match against gasoline breath.
No is a door ripped off its hinges.
No is a crime scene where I am the suspect.
(why did you make her so mad?)

She is the reason I smile when I am scared.
A trick I learned to survive.
A trick I cannot unlearn.
A trick that fools everyone,
even me.

—But she is not here.

Is she?
I tell myself she is gone,
but she is still the reason.

She is the reason I run.
She is the reason I stay.
She is the reason I am afraid to be loved,
and the reason I am terrified to be alone.

She is the reason.
And I hate that she still is.

i burn with fury
he could leave me
but i don’t have that luxury
he saved himself from me
i am held hostage
by this obligation to live
his abandonment is not termed
selfish the way mine would be
so i stay,
alone with the knowledge that i am someone people leave.
someone everyone leaves