Life is magnificent just before it tries to kill you.

Mere weeks before graduating

out of my treatment program

I shared my illogical fear

of being abandoned in the center of my life,

hidden from anyone that could possibly understand me.

Some people, I divulged, are bigger than forgetting.

I don’t think I’m one of those people.

CODED SIGNALS

You’ll be happy to hear that I’m trying not to use the

word love as a placeholder for what I really want to

say STOP This is not because I suddenly know what

to say COMMA but because even in the privacy of

my own body I prioritize your grief STOP As if you’ll

even know STOP As if you want me to STOP How’s

this for a placeholder STOP I don’t know what I

believe in anymore but I know it isn’t god STOP Or

love STOP Or you

STOP

There I goSTOPTainting everything by writing

it down STOPEven then I couldn’t escape entirely

from the rabbit hole of that word STOPAnd here

I am COMMA granting you immortality on a page

when the story is as simple as “you left”

STOP

I can’t keep sitting here COMMA elbows deep in the

thought that this just wasn’t supposed to work out for

us STOP

You can’t keep blaming this on timing when the

minute hand is underneath your tongue STOP Was it

not enough that I let you rewrite my history STOP

Was it not enough STOP Was I not enough STOP

I MISS YOU STOP SO MUCH STOP AND I DON’T KNOW STOP WHAT TO DO STOP

I STOP DO STOP NOT STOP KNOW STOP HOW STOP TO STOP LET STOP THIS STOP

go

LIES

after Yena Sharma Purmasir

I did not know heartbreak at a young age / Intimacy

comes naturally to me / I’m the type of person that

leaves and doesn’t look back / I’ve forgotten why it

hurts so much to be alone / Nothing reminds me of

him / I’m fluent in more than one language / I have

never thought at length about how I will die / I have

never met anybody that reminded me of a sunflower /

I always know exactly what to say / It has only ever

been like this / The possibility of a higher being has

never felt realistic / I have never used a Ouija board / I

have never tried to communicate with something that I

knew was dead / Depression does not prevent me

from taking care of myself / I will sit in the driveway,

alone, and have no idea what stops me from walking

inside / It is possible for me to feel safe when I am not

being loved / I believe that it will always ache this

terribly / I wrote you a letter and never sent it / I drove

home at dawn and did not think once, not even once,

about your mouth.

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING