You're in my veins, you fuck

You still linger in the novels I read

After you left,

I stopped watering the flowers

on my front lawn, and as I watched

each one fold into itself

I started wondering if I was doing the same.

Because if you aren't living,

then you have to be dying instead,

or at least that's what my mother screamed

when she told me stop listening to sad music

and reading books that clawed

away at my insides.

When things started getting really bad

with the first boy I ever pretended

to love,

he started saying things like,

'You don't smell as good as she did'

and 'I only kissed you so you could finally

stop talking about poetry and what the

New York City rain tastes like.'

I realized I didn't really love him

when he told me to leave,

and I did.

The first time I told you I

was falling in love with your hands

and the way they knew how to hold me,

you whispered to me about the last

girl that lived in your bed,

and how her mother still calls

you sometimes and invites

you over for dinner.

There were nights when

you didn't come home until three in the morning,

and I wondered if

you were busy eating from plates

that weren't mine

and touching skin that didn't belong

to my bones.

I almost asked,

but the way you looked through me

in the mornings told me

that I didn't want the answer.

Months after that,

she left a voicemail

telling you how much she

loved the necklace you bought her

and how she liked the way

you looked in the soft glow of dawn.

I almost broke the house in half

with the thunder in my sobs.

You came home to find me

in the corner of the bedroom

scratching at the walls

and howling to a moon that didn't

bother showing up.

I don't remember leaving,

I just know one day I woke up

and nobody was there to ignore me anymore.

I'm still trying to decide if that was

worse than being ignored in the first place.

And I'd send this to you,

but you probably wouldn't see it sitting

on your doorstep.

You'd probably step right over it,

and then wonder why you haven't heard

from me.