That is who I am, that me with you.

I would rather be remembered

through your eyes

than mine.

Stray glances and last-minute hangs,

the signs were there all along

I chose to ignore gut instinct

and carried on with fledgling hope—

I saw so much of me in you.

I waited for you to recognize

what we had was special

maybe, different,

but you had blindfolds on as well.

It must have been in my most

egotistical of moods

when I believed you loved me too.

When they ask you about love,

does my name ever come up?

I swallow words,

sticky sour

like mornings of beer

and tobacco aftertastes.

Sticky sour words

that turn into land mines

when kept too long

words exploding, uncaring

of celebrations or joy,

of time or resolve.

Sticky sour words

that I cannot scrape off.

Do not ask questions

for which answers

you aren’t prepared to hear

—I remind myself.

But in the not knowing

I find my madness.

Maybe the hardest part

is letting myself feel the pain,

acknowledging

you had meant something

we had meant something.

At least to me.

Despite it all, I admire your work;

how beautifully you destroyed

first my walls, then me.

It is the silences I miss the most:

driving down winding lanes

destination unknown,

inhaling the crispness of trees

sitting on bar stools

with music too loud for conversation,

lying slumped against my staircase

unable to speak all the words

corroding my insides.

You were always there

and my silences had a home.

In moments of stillness

it is still your page I refresh.

Your love had a

limited vocabulary.

Your wants.

Your needs.

There were no

words in your dictionary

defining how to love me.

You never claimed to love me,

I thank you for that.

In the end, I blame myself

for believing something

never said.

Now I am left with doubt

on what was truly felt.

Your words were like poetry

{or maybe your lips}

you knew how to swing

the pendulum of emotion

sometimes like Neruda

sometimes like Poe

at times, we were a fairy tale

at times, a horror show.

I hoarded your love

from the very beginning

as if I knew

it’d be in limited supply.

Hundreds of photos of you

of us

numbering far more

than the days we spent together

a box full of memorabilia.

I have made something

out of the nothings you gave me.

I am good at giving meaning

to words that held no feeling

to things that were meant to be

discarded from the beginning

I am too good at trying on love

that was never my fit.

I break my own heart a few times

before understanding it is over.

I wake up excited, forgetting

the empty side, the parted lover.

Let me be clear, I did not need you;

but oh how much I wanted you.

I now see how unoriginal our love was:

you—full of pickup lines