The Blood & The Bones

“What happened?” they ask.

And I smile and say “It just didn’t work out.”  That’s what I have to tell them.  They pry, they care, they try to get the things from me I can’t give right now.

But, one day I will.  One day I’ll talk about this hole inside my chest you left. I’ll describe in great detail the days after when I could barely breathe remembering how you said my name, how your hand felt on my skin while we slept.  Your laugh, the sound of it and how I never could quite decide if your eyes were more green or brown.

And I’ll tell them how minutes felt like days. How I ached for you to say something, anything, everything ..Just not nothing.  One day I’ll talk about how it made me doubt my very existence and, even worse, the love you swore you felt for me.

One day I’ll tell someone, anyone, everyone how you gutted me with silence. You used the quiet like a knife and you killed the hope that lingered in me..   so, I became just like every girl you’d left aching for clarity, for understanding, when I always thought that I was different.

I never was.  I just had to wait my turn.

How I thought up reasons to reach out.  Ways to run into you hoping it would stir something inside your fleeting heart.

And how I couldn’t quite understand..

How can you just up and leave?  How can you decide to be so empty?  How can you turn away from me so easily?  And how can I cleanse myself of you when I still feel you all over me? You touched every part of me. And so I know why this love will not leave me..

Please God, just let it leave me.

One day I’ll tell them about the way I sat there, in that chair day in and day out waiting for the very thing I knew was never coming.

And how I could not stop remembering your eloquent lies dressed up in other languages, eyes so genuine, feeding off my innocence. Your beautiful. Fucking. Lies.

How I felt heavy and empty with the weight of them, I couldn’t shake them. I picked apart everything and in the end I didn’t know what you meant and what you didn’t.  And it made me sick to think I believed the devil when he promised not to hurt me.

And all the things I wanted to say to you, the hot, aching stones in the back of my throat.. Swallow them down girl, don’t let them choke you. Don’t let them wreak their havoc on you.  Don’t let them out…don’t let them in….Don’t let them..

Don’t let him….

What?  Don’t let him do what?  Break me? Leave me? Empty me of everything? Steal every smile back he ever put on my stupid fucking face?

Too late.  Too late.  I can’t unknow you now.  I can’t unfeel you.  I can’t unlove you.

I’ll scream about the disaster of trying to move on without you and say I just never moved on.  I stayed still in the thick of this fucking tornado that you called love and unloving.  I pretended to be ok just like you pretended to love me.

And how I stayed, unwillingly, in this spot where you walked away from me because you said I loved you too much.  And towards some other girl who would never love you enough.  I’ll cry about how stupid I felt when I realized the truth. That it wasn’t a specific girl you wanted..

Just that you didn’t want me.

Just not me.

One day I’ll tell them everything.

But not today.  Today I cannot.  Today the words will break me.  And so the stones, they sit.  The words, the pain, the love like a weight.  The lies woven into me I cannot remove, and so, they stay.  But that’s ok.

Because it’s all I have left of you anyway.

LL~