/ holding on to something that is definitely dead /

/ not letting go /

/ not saying goodbye /

/ not saying goodbye even though i should /

there was a boy right after you, with mahogany hair and ocean eyes, and i let him fall in love with me. he looked at me as if i were the sun, and i, desperate for the warmth of love’s light, let him fall in love with me.

i knew there was never a chance. but i took things from him anyway, greedy and hungry. a kiss. a hand. a touch. when i told him i couldn’t do it, when i set his heart back in his hands, i wanted to think it was because you had broken me.

you made me incapable of loving somebody.

but it was never that you made me incapable of loving another.

it was that for the longest time, you made me incapable of loving anybody but you.

relationship status: single (and very lonely).

you’re not who i want anymore. i want him.

he’s the only one who can make me feel like i’m worth something.

i don’t love you anymore. i don’t like what i see when i look at you (myself).

so now you’re gone, and so is he.

and i am left with nothing.

i miss you i type into the message box, but that feels wrong, and too sad—

backspace backspace backspace

i hate you i type instead, but somehow that feels even less right—

backspace backspace backspace

i miss you but i hate you—

backspace backspace

i hate you but i miss you—

backspace

i hate you because you lied to me

i hate you because you hurt me

i hate you because everything

but that doesn’t seem right to me, either,

because i don’t hate you—

backspace backspace backspace

i miss you because you made me feel special

i miss you because you were my friend

i miss you because everything

and i almost hit send, but—

i hit backspace because you don’t care

i hit backspace because you don’t love me

i hit backspace because everything.

everything, always everything. you are as far away as you will ever be, and i am still staring at a phone screen.

—the imessage debate

our mutual friend asks if you can talk to me.

why would he want that?

i ask him,

determined to stay strong

and say no.

he wants to apologize.

well, he already did,

and that didn’t change anything.

catarine,

he found your poems.

fuck,

i say,

here’s my new number.

sometimes, love is fickle.

sometimes, love does not know whether it should

stay

or go.

it likes for you to leave the door unlocked.

it likes it when you let it keep the key.

so when love comes back with bags filled with

i’m sorry

everything is wrong without you

i read the poems and i want to fix things

please let me fix things,

it can still wedge its foot in the door and kick it open.