The Blood & The Bones

‘What happened this time?” They ask.  And I see the judgement in their eyes. They know this isn’t the first time. But I don’t talk about it.  I keep the secrets hidden within me.  You know it’s easier that way. 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 each time you left & how I could barely breathe when I remembered how I really thought we’d spend our lives together.

And I’ll tell them how minutes felt like months. 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.

I’ll tell them how you would disappear like I was a thing that never was.  Like we were something that never mattered.  How I thought up reasons to reach out & racked my brain for what to say to stir something inside your heart that would make you warm to me again.

I’ll tell them how I waited & waited.  Rooted to the remnants of you.  Because you always came back eventually.  And your promises were so beautiful like you’d spent the weeks between rehearsing so each time you could convince me to believe it would be different. I wanted so badly to fucking believe it would be different. And how you never stayed forever even though you promised that too.  But still I stood in the waiting not knowing it was quicksand & that even though you always came back it was never to save me but to save you.

One day I’ll tell someone, anyone, everyone how you gutted me with silence. You used the quiet like a knife & you killed the hope that lingered in me.. so, I became just like every person you’d left aching for clarity & for understanding, when I always thought that I was different. But, I never was.  I just had to wait my turn. And then I’ll tell them how I prayed to a God I wasn’t even sure I believed in that this would leave me. Please God let it fucking leave me so that I may breathe again without the taste of you that I’ll never know, the touch of you i’ll never feel still wandering the halls of my aching, longing, hoping heart. But how it never did.  It never would. It never can. And when I’m done, I’ll tell them how people can be dead but still alive.  Just walking corpses filled with memories because that’s exactly how you left me.

But not today.. no today I’ll just say ‘oh you know.. just didn’t work out’

LL~