when i remember you
i feel my heart shrink
and my blood curdle
why, sir
did you not water these seeds
that i scattered so liberally
your every neglect a death
that still kills me each time i think of you,
of your absent love
and your inability to understand
the storms i carried within me each day
“stop being so fidgety, you’re killing the vibe”
you said to me once
while we were mercilessly trapped in a crowd at a concert;
did you understand what i was feeling?
suffocation clawing at my insides
my anxiety contracting everything that was alive in me
breath almost leaving me, elusive and resistant to return
when we went back home, you said again
“that would have been fun if you tried to enjoy yourself more”
just like the other time you said
“just fucking get over it”
no, my sir
i can’t just snap out of it
you can never understand, and i hope you never do
what it’s like to have your mind spin and spin
until you’re so dizzy you collapse, distraught
what it is, to be obsessively stuck on a thought
like a stopped clock that refuses to move
or like a dead bird on the ground, eyes frozen as marble;
when i look back, i realize the shock of the bigger truth
point blank, staring at me:
that it was you, you and you
the reason why my heart remained bruised
and my breath remained stuck
i wished for comfort in your arms
when i spiraled beyond my own orbit
but you kept slicing open, the flesh i was trying to stitch together
my dear
in this loneliness, i concede
how you made everything worse
by telling me i chose my suffering
in a way you were right
because i chose to be intoxicated by the perfume of your abysmal existence
not realizing they were toxic fumes all along
melting my insides furiously;
today, i stand solemnly
my mind and heart somewhat safer
i still feel unsettled from the tragedy of living
but i’m alive
which is more than what i was
when you kept unloving me
may you never know what it’s like
to drown endlessly
in the infinite vastness of a dark ocean
but if ever you do
i wish that your anxiety blooms into extraordinary flowers
and instead of poison
they serve the sweetest nectar..