the daemonology of hysteria

i forget i exist when i'm not being touched

there is not a beautiful way to explain that i am lonely, although i wasn't always.

(this is our small tragic story from two gloomy cities, featuring unshared books, empty libraries, shuddering kisses and summer rain)

i remember you were holding my hands, i swear. you were clutching me in the gentle moonlight on veneris as though they were our last minutes before death parted us; with your hands embracing mine until our hearts are towed apart by the orange waves and the bleeding warmth which we yearn to feel.

and then you slipped your fingers out of mine to caress someone elses and i no longer felt real. i promise i've never felt my eyes hurt so hard from not blinking and chest so heavy from not breathing. how could i not feel pathetic when i know that of all the things that my hands have have ever held, the best by far is you. like any other unloved thing, i put all my hope into your hands and you just decided to drop mine out of yours as though my whole existence didn't depend on you, and your hands, your skin, your touch. it felt unreal; as though the heart that once beat for you had been ripped out of my chest with your cold, bare hands and thrown to the solum in the prosaic kitchen light. as though i had been shot right into my cœur; every single happy memory abandoning me with the blow and leaving my bosom covered in the blood that once belonged to you.

you promised you wanted to write poetry on my skin with your lips forever (you sang, "toi, mon amour, mon amie, je ne pas vivre sans toi" in the most tragic voice that you could muster because you knew we weren't built to last because i'm always inside my head and you're always high and i am angry and restless and i will never be good enough)

you spent countless hours telling me that you wanted to paint my skin with love as we laid on each other (i remember trying to fill up this hole inside of me with the hopeful promises you made but it just ended up hurting more and more) in the twilight hour and ran our hands through each others hair and you talked to the stars as i thought about what might be of us tomorrow. you wanted to love me over the lilied water, the roses of the morning, the alstroemerias at sundown, the daisies in the evening and under the stars and the planets and the sky and the gods. and those words are now so far gone that all i can feel is emptiness and all i can remember about you is the pain. you are nothing but a sad memory