Stars & Fingertips

Artificial Sweetener

I can see you. My eyes and my being and my entity sees you. I see the way you look at her. I see the way your fingers trace her shoulders. I see the smile on your lips when you embrace. I see the way your face is gentle in her arms. I see the look in your eyes.

You used to look at me that way.

I am the scissors that cut you away from who you had preferred. And now that she is back I am left alone to rust.

I understand that I should move on. I understand that this had just been an incident and that these wounds should heal, but I continue to burn myself.

I see you look at her like she is the most beautiful flower in this field of weeds. And I wish so badly to set this valley ablaze and watch you burn holding this flower that you had received when you traded in a match.

I am a match and I am ready to ignite.

Instead of lighting these weeds I am held beneath your fingers as you watch me burn and disappear into the wind, as I am only dust. I am lost in this wind and I cannot find my way back to you.

But do I even want to?

I went for a drive last night. I drove right past my home and into a world that I had not explored. The windows were down and my arms were spread wide as the music vibrated the exterior of my vehicle and shook my heart until it could only feel the bass of the rhythm. I could not feel anything but contentment and that was what I had been longing for.

And as I finally arrived to sleep a vision of you came to me, a vision of you and her. You had written her a poem, a dedication of your love.

I woke up and I expected myself to be crying, but then a thought had come to my mind. You were not the type to write girls poems. You were not the type to express how you felt. You were not the type to pay attention to the ones that you claimed you loved. You were not the type to say the word love. You were not the type to mean it when you apologized. You were not the type to care. You were not the type to be truthful. You were not the type to be faithful.

And I realized as I laid there underneath the blankets and sheets which had not been touched by you that you had never been the type for me at all.

As I look back on past events I can now see everything more clearly. I am no longer blinded by your perfection and what is left in front of me is the truth.

You had used me.

You had used me each and every time, 7, 8, and 9. The sweet words and compliments that spilled from your lips were nothing but lies that I had fooled myself into believing. I wanted love and you gave me artificial sweetener; you gave me a lovely fantasy which could only have ever ended in tragedy.

I want to take your head in my hands and kiss you, full on the lips. I want a long kiss that is filled with the longing inside of my body. I want your sweet lips on mine one last time. As I pull back I would look at you, into the eyes which had never had a definite color other than beautiful. As I look into your eyes and you wonder what could be happening I want to drive my fist into the side of your face. I want to hit you so hard that your jaw clicks out of place and you can never enjoy kissing the same way. Every time I kiss I think of you. I sit there and behind my eyelids is you, even though this person in front of me owns a different name. Can I not forget about your lips even for a moment?

His lips are not like yours. They are more plump and pronounced and his navigation is nothing like yours.

I need to lose the road that takes me to you and veer off onto a different path. This road that I have been taking to you has been in the middle of a falling rock zone and I have been crushed. I can see you standing down by the end of the road past the center yellow lines and the lines and emotions of my love become mixed together.

It had been you who had led me here, and you are the reason why I am trapped beneath this solidity.

Rock beats scissors.

You have taken my heart out of my chest and beat it until it bled. You held it beneath your foot and put so much pressure on it that it had burst into pieces, shattered across the road that you now stand alone in. You were alone until she came along. Now you walk atop these pieces like they're just gravel and nothing more. Every day that I see you with her I see what has destroyed me inside and I see the bottom of your shoes, because I am nothing but dirt to you.

That is how you had treated me.

Yesterday was Saint Patrick's day and you had sent me a message about the holiday and that it was a good time to crack open a cold one.

I agree.

I did not respond.

Later on you felt the sting of my silence and I know you had wondered why I was no longer under your control. I have given up on trying to make you realize that I am still here, I am still devoted to you. You will never recognize this.

You had said a few weeks ago that whenever we talked I would forgive you a little bit more, and that I shouldn't because you did not treat me right.

I know this to be true.

And my silence is what keeps that from happening. No matter how much I want things to be different, no matter how much I want to respond and feel your fingers running through my hair again, I know that this can never happen.

You have broken my heart once; I have broken my heart twice.

On March 3rd I said "I don't want this to just be about-"

"It's not."

I believed you.

Now as this hideousness that you call happiness is flaunted in front of my eyes every day I know that you had lied. You had held your forehead to mine and whispered sweet lies. You have been bitter sweet. You have been my artificial sweetener, because black coffee never sit right in my stomach and black coffee is the equivalent of loneliness.

It is better to be lonely now then to be waiting for a love I will never receive.

It is better to drink black coffee than never taste anything sweeter.