POSPHENOUS

Phosphenous - your first actual love

And when your first actual love,
which is your nth lover because you've lost
count of the pseudo- and the almost ones,
closes your book, you will feel not like a body
where a heart shatters, but an entire wound,
open, gaping, quiet but not really. You will be silent,
and your questions will find not even a blade
of answer because the only one you'll whisper them to
is an empty room and the sound of your own
reluctant voice echoed back by the cold walls.
They will be the only ones to hold you, not the skin
and warmth and arms that will have used to.
When the door closes, your fingers will not reach out
but your ribs will hurt so much you'll want
to rip them out. You might even try. But you will stop
because he will hate it if you do. You will painfully,
very painfully, avoid the troublesome things
you think will help you simply because you know
he wouldn't want you to do any of those things.
Your past will be your guideline, a burning path
to walk upon. You will not believe in forgetfulness,
the meaning of it a stranger to your bones.
You will find no exit. Not even a crack of it. Not even
a whisper. A touch. A touch you will long so much
and deny until you bleed because your time
will have been long gone and there will be nothing
you can do to take steps back when your back,
already, is against a concrete wall. Or a hole.
A loop where you'll go back to where you crouch
on the floor of your bathroom at three wishing
for sleep and grateful that the lack of it is again
a friendly thing. You will jump into the belief
that it is comforting. Write it on your skin. Press it
to your tongue, your closed lids. The edges of
your lips where you'll say that is where an ocean
used to be-smothering, softly, completing.
And you, used to, unbelieving. Wasting.
In a very bad sense, existing.