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it’s hard to do what you know is best
when really it feels like you’re cutting your heart out of your chest
open heart surgery,
my heart was open to him—
a book, his personal library.
he told me i was bound shut but he didn’t know that i tore my pages out and laid them on the floor before him, around him.
and when i put a match to the piles of paper surrounding him, i watched him burn within the flames,
that sad smile on his face
like he always had
when we’d say goodbye.
i watched, steel eyed and stone faced
while he cried.
and when it became too much
i turned my face
so that he couldn’t see the tears evaporating in the heat of our blaze.
i tried to turn back, hoping that he would still be there, like he always was—
my pillar, my support, waiting for me with arms open, always waiting for me to come home, to him, he was home—
but all i found was ashes.
him and i, mixed together
because you can’t tell the difference when you’re both hurting—
all screams sound the same.
he was gone.
he was gone and i am a shadow, a ghost;
paper pasted together from ashes never holds writing the same.

--7.25.18