I kept telling myself I was over you

That I was done writing about you

Or thinking about you

Or talking about you

But here I am

Six months later and I still feel guilty for letting your name grace my tongue

Six months later and I still think about you every time I meet someone new

And I know you would hate that

And I know you would tell me not to

Or how I’m too young to understand my own love

But you’re wrong

And I know that now

I know a lot of things now

You see I know I deserved better

Even though I didn’t want better

Even though I didn’t know it then

I know it now.

 

I know that I am deserving of love

Or care

Or the decent honesty from the one I love

And these are things you were never quite capable of

Not with me.

You can keep the dinners

And drinks

And movie tickets

And all the memories spent holding each other close

I don’t need them anymore

They are merely stones meant to be skipped and forgotten

And I don’t collect stones anymore

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t die the day you said you’d never love me

Doesn’t mean a part of me didn’t break every time I watched you kiss him.

But that part of my life is over

I’ve closed the book and put it neatly on the shelf between happiness and hurt.

 

But today I started writing a poem and was annoyed when it became about you.

Today I was annoyed to think of you

But that meant I wasn’t sad

There was no melancholy poem made to weave your name into

Instead I wrote about how I am going on dates again

How I haven’t relapsed to my old habits again

And how perhaps losing you

Leaving you

Was the best decision I ever made.

You may have killed me when you ripped out my heart to sign your apologies

But I am reincarnated in the memory of who I am

And everything I can still be.

I am reincarnated because even death couldn’t stop me

And neither could you

I am reincarnated with a new heart

One that doesn’t beat for you anymore

At least not all the time

And I am reincarnated to live again

To be myself again

To meet new men

And make new memories

And fall in love again

And again and again

Until someday it finally sticks

Until someday they finally stay

And I will be reincarnated as the best husband a man could ever have

But I won’t be yours.