Midnight, I’m reading a book, we’ve been talking for a month or so,
He tells me he loves me.
What?
I have trouble understanding at first.
A couple of days later, the hands return,
“Put the phone down, come to bed, let’s go to sleep,”
The words burn themselves
into my memory.
They grab my ankles, my wrists-
He hugs me closer.
I’m pinned to the bed, I’ll never get up-
He hugs me closer.
“Stay.”
He hugs me closer.
He hugs me closer.
He hugs me closer.

January 3rd, I get the phone call.
My mother doesn’t even bother
to have me sit down for the news.
My limbs fill with sand,
Then get unbearably light.
I run.
I can’t feel my hands. It’s so cold.
My face is covered in ice.
“The best thing to do in these situations is to run.”
I run.
I can’t feel my hands.
I run.
I can’t feel my feet.
I run.
I can’t feel anything.
I run.

February 14th.
He leaves.
That’s all I have to say.

Lying on the bathroom floor, crying.
Ever more violently.
Why would you hurt me like this?
I could never hate you,
But I am so broken.
Why?
How could a man
That wrote such beautiful poems
And claimed to
Love
Me
So
Dearly
Do this?

I am weak.
I am vulnerable.

I can’t cry anymore
Or I can.
I can’t stop crying anymore.
You hurt me so much, darling
And I don’t have the courage to tell you
That I would be so happy
If you came back.

I’m so tired.
June 24th.
The hands.
“I’m leaving.
Of course,
One day-
I’ll love someone else-”
Like you loved me?
No love is the same,
I can assure you.
Blood pools on the sides of my jaw.
I get up from the table
Go out to the parking lot
And
I beg my mother
To push me off the 40-story hospital building.
She yells.
-
I’m so sorry.

He says it with such ease,
“One day,”
It was so easy
“I’m leaving,”
The hands.
They grab my wrists.
“We’ve already broken up.”
They grab my ankles.
I scream. Endlessly. It doesn’t matter.
There’s no relief.
Only pain from here on out.
I’m pinned down to the bed,
I’m never going to get up.
“Stay.”
“I’m leaving-”
“Stay.”
He hugs me closer,
The hands,
Pull me away-
He hugs me closer,
I run. Pull me away.
He hugs me closer.
I run. I run. I run.
He hugs me closer.
“Stay.”
And I would.