Breaking Up

 

It is as if we’re breaking up.

Breaking that beautiful bliss

That we had collected in

Five short days.

Just as a child collects sea shells,

I shoved our memories in my pockets

Weighing them down with the clattering of our day old laughter.

When you

Are no longer in sight

I will think of you often—

of that time when you were mine

And I was yours.

 

We savored the rumble of mustang exhaust,

The sharp tang of burned rubber

That tickled our noses,

And the sweetness of vape fumes

That clung to our clothing like a tattoo.

I will bottle up those scents

And pour them in a perfume spritzer.

On those rainy days

When I miss you the most,

I will spray your scent in my hair

And imagine that your head is my umbrella

Resting gently over my shoulder

As you shelter me from the rain.

 

Breaking up seems so far away from where we used to be.

We were suspended in time

Caught in a plain of existing

Simply for each other.

 

In those small stolen moments,

When you were caught between leaving and staying,

We levitated in limbo.

Creating our own little infinity

In the minutes between 10:45 and 11 o'clock

We had forever.

 

I was like a new pair of boots

That needed breaking in.

You wore me every day for the first week,

Getting used to the way I scratched at your ankle

And blistered your pinky toe.

Your wore me in

Just long enough to get used to the way

I felt.

 

Breakups

Should really be called break ins

People do not break upwards,

We break inwards.

Our hearts implode—full of nothing

but space.

For I have broken inwards…

It’s as though I am collapsing.

The support beams in my chest

concave,

Hallow in places that you used to fill.

 

Now

That you’re gone

I am only half as full.

I still have laughter in my lungs

And secrets in my soul,

But there are fewer sparks

Swishing around in my stomach

Fewer compliments to cradle in my hands

And a scarcity of subtle glances

Made just for us.

 

On those rainy days

When I miss you the most,

I will think of our fullness

Filled like a sail

Carrying us to fantastic forevers.

Though

Finite in their existence

I will think of our fullness

And cherish all you have given me

And all that you wish

You could have.