benches—if it helps you understand what absence feels like. if it

helps you learn how to enjoy those things without them. when

people haunt you, you can’t always close your eyes and have them

be gone when you open them again. you can’t wish them away.

sometimes, you just have to let them stick around, for as long as

you really need them to. even if you don’t know it. until you can

go to the coffee maker and not see them standing there, until you

can go to the bookstore and it still holds that magic that it once

had, until the roses smell just as sweet as they used to, until you no

longer wish them away each night, until they fade on their own,

and you don’t even notice.

growing pains

i hope you understand now.

i hope you understand that in a lot of ways—

in most ways—

this stopped being about you

a long time ago.

sure,

if somebody dug under the surface

of these poems,

they’d find you there,

but you are no longer the root of this.

if they kept digging,

they’d find me—

not you, not us—

just me,

at the center.

you changed me.

you changed me

while you were here

and you’ve continued

to change me in the years

you’ve been gone.

it has taken me a long time

to realize that those changes

were for the better.

threadbare

i used to believe we were soul mates,

but i don’t think our souls

would even recognize each other anymore.

the last time i looked into your eyes

i could already feel the ends

of the string that tied us together

fraying and breaking away.

i think if i looked into them now,

only a few limp threads would remain,

weak and powerless,

signifying nothing other than

an old and long-lost connection.

how amazing it feels

to be free of you.

i have learned that sometimes

the best thing to do is listen to your scars.

the worst heartbreaks stay with you for years

but they protect you the whole time.

the biggest wounds may take the longest

to heal but also have the most to learn from.

your past is not always the enemy.

sometimes, it can be your greatest friend.

if you made it this far

three years ago i wrote a book and at the end of it i said it was over,

that i had forgiven you. a few months later i saw you and realized,

immediately, that it wasn’t. there were wounds not yet closed,

truths i had yet to grapple with. i just wasn’t over it yet, no matter

how badly i wanted to be. and i hope you know by now that i really

wanted to be.

two years ago i wrote another book and i told you i was done

writing about this, that it was doing more harm than good. i was