don’t smile because it happened

even knowing you‘d never in a billion years get a second chance with me

it aches bitterly; the grief of watching you throw away the first

the tightly wound chord you made of me still reverberating in my new beginnings

Green flags give me cold shivers now

and remind me of freshly buttered toast

and a white cat i’ll never hold again —lovingly shrimped sideways on my lap

my favorite snacks always stocked in your pantry (and my brand of pads and menstrual cups in your bathroom)

I go back to the first night we became official, getting ready for my cousin’s halloween party in your living room. Sat in your lap doing your black cat face paint, pretending to ignore your lovesick stare.

how giddy and light I felt when you asked me to be your partner

Today butterflies make me nauseous

i can taste traces of my favorite feta and date salad made just because

and i hear the faint thud of a window closing before i wake because you know i get cold easily

and i feel the warmth of snuggling into a heating pad you bought even though you overheat at anything over 65 degrees

i can see my phone light up with a text from you that has me buzzing “good night, beloved”

i felt so lucky then. how funny

My heart sinks now when i feel the barest stirrings of affection for someone else

i’ll be sitting at dinner with my smile pulled taut across from Mr. New

as i recall our nervous grins in the glow of your amber mood lighting—courtesy of your color-changing Hue lightbulbs

deftones drifting through your living room and movie nights at the theater where the chairs had green and yellow and blue mismatched cushions

the rush of warmth when i’d pull up to your house and see

your eager face and soft brown eyes piercing the night as you waited in your front yard to receive me

the sigh of relief and how i’d melt into your arms when your front door would close behind me

while i’d pepper tender kisses all over your face

unable to contain the joy of seeing it and the thrill of reuniting after 24 or 48 or (rarely more than) 72 hours.

why did i make a home in a burning house?

So now green flags also bring up the lurch of silence when i asked what you loved about me

the sinking stone of dread when you really fixed your lips and said to me

“we hooked up a long time ago, so what if i like all her pictures. don’t you trust me?”

my pulse ticking up a notch as you put your phone face down again

the quiet sigh as walks to my car door and flowers became

“i walk you out all the time, you’ve got it this time right?”

“i’m never buying flowers, they’re just a waste of money”

So now when my eyes soften at someone new

my heart clenches remembering the night it was “too hot for aftercare” and the bolt of shame i felt as i cried quietly in your bathroom at 3am

feeling pathetic for staying and pathetic for wanting to

making my way back to bed relying on the shield of your pitch black bedroom to hide my puffy eyes and the cloak of silence to cover my stuffy nose

breathing shallowly

while my throat worked desperately to swallow the scalding loneliness of being next to you

pinned to the corkboard of our relationship by the needle of despair

because the last time i opened up about what i needed— you cut and run

setting me adrift into a sea of heartbreak for the first time

So rudderless i took you back instantly when you called me 10 hours later

and then i lay next to you

too scared to reach for you

and be abandoned again

too embarrassed to explain this to anyone

resigned and furious and lost and heartbroken

you shocked me then, asking “are you good”

and I said yeah as nonchalantly as I could while gulping down the urge to wail

and the molten tide of hurtangerfearresentment at your question

because how dare you cosplay attunement while having the emotional capacity of a pasta strainer—any of my feedback or hurt taken as a personal attack

your shame and feelings of inadequacy leaving no space for me and leeching into me by osmosis

how dare you pretend you could hold me in any way except physical?

how dare i accept these scraps of love from you

if they ever even were that

i stayed so long searching for the version of you who called me beloved

and searching for the version of me that you could love

Since leaving,

i’ve sifted painstakingly through every moment in between “hello” and “have a good life i guess.” trying to find the point of it all

all i have is mourning the me i was in the beginning;

trusting and hopeful and soft

but she couldn't have survived all this

so i cry because it happened

and i cry because it’s over