Poems

If He Left/When He Leaves

It was easier to talk to the guy who lived ten hours away than it was the one who lived a mere 30 minutes.

I think that was because the boy who lived half way across the state I had lost time and time again. And with each time he left me and I broke, I also lived. Don't get me wrong, it hurt like hell. Every shattering I went through was just as bad (if not worse) than the first time but I survived with the help of time.
I was connected to him like lightening precedented thunder. He balanced my crazy with the medication of his soul. We had a way of knowing what the other needed and fixing it.
He caused my internal blacks and blues but he also came back to turn them into violets and wisterias. I let him back in every time like a lover with amnesia. Maybe in a sick way I wanted him to hurt me because I knew he'd fix me. But isn't that what everyone secretly covets: someone to fix them?
I knew that if I said something he deemed wrong and left my life would virtually be the same. I'd walk through the same red and white halls and never cross his path. I'd talk to the same faces and never stare into his cerulean eyes. My heart would know something was missing but my brain would overrule it saying everything looked the same. How could anything be wrong? I knew it was a matter of when not if. And I always expected his absence in my bones.

But the guy who lived close enough to touch bound me with silence. I couldn't find the right way to string together words that traveled through my head like New York City traffic-hectic and disorganized.
He never kissed my bruises or cleaned my wounds, but then again when I was around him there were none. No broken materials to recycle into flowers. He never took a blade to my newly sutured stitches and ran the cold metal down the black weaving just to watch me bleeding for leaving. He was always here and always dependable. I knew where he was on almost any occasion. He never up and left.
It was hard to talk to him but I did. His words flowed like honey and I got addicted to the raw sweetness. The true and honesty of his words. We were connected like nature and bees. I gave him what he needed to never be hungry and he gave me the possibility of continuing.
It was hard to talk to him. We crossed paths at least three times a day. But I knew if he left like the other guy, he'd never truly leave. His soul may vacate but his body remain a constant torment to me. He'd be like a treasure chest that had lost its key, and I'd be the pirate that watched from afar hoping it would one day open and reveal something internally beautiful to me.
It was hard to talk to him because talking to him meant getting attached to him. And getting attached to him meant that when he left he'd take pieces of me. Not just pieces but whole chunks that I wouldn't be able to see back up. That no man could turn into flowers.
I'd walk through red and white halls and hold the stare of eyes that flowed through me like I was stained glass. I'd hold conversations with eyes that weren't the same shade of rustic brown. And I don't know if I could survive that. I don't think I could live through that. I haven't yet. And my goodness, I never want to try. My heart would cry that something was wrong and there was no way my brain disagree. If he left, nothing would look the same.