i still remember the day
i was waiting for you
with a bouquet of rosesi don’t remember the smell
but i remember the feeling
of thorns digging into my palmi think that says a lot
please don’t get tired of me
or of the way i lie next to you
and tell you what i love about you
more than twenty times
you should know this:
if i kept it inside
i’d get cracks all over
and it would pour out of me
writing about you in blue ink
seems cheap and clichein my last biology lesson
they said that the human body
contains 5.6 liters of bloodand all i could think about
was the number of ballads
i could write across my wall
in red warm ink before i
passed out
writing is safer, somehow
because my pen cannot stutter like my lips do,
and words get stuck in throats,
not fingertips, can’t stumble
on paper trails of blue lines
because writing is definite and clear
and no one can tell if i am crying
or laughing
through written words alone
at night
i lie awake
counting
not sheep
but the minutes
without youat night
i lie awake
breathing
my own filth
wishing it was
your sweetnessat night
i lie awake
listening
to my own heart
pretending
it was yours
we broke up today.
the cardigan you once gave to me
is still lying in my room.
it smells like me.
there is no trace of you.
we broke up today.
it is a spring day, and the sun
is shining, and
we broke up today.
soon - in a year, or maybe two,
i will forget the way your hand
felt in mine or maybe
the way you used to smile
when i said something nice.
i didn’t say anything nice today.
it is a spring day, and the sun
is shining, and i think this
would be so much easier
if the sky was crying, too.
i fell
i fell deep
deep down
in love
i felt my
bones break
as they hit
the surface
stitch me
back
together

Richard Siken, from “Little Beast”
when i first met you
i thought you were my
missing puzzlepiece
that would fit perfectly
into one of the holes
in my heart
later
i discovered
you were a whole
goddamn
scattered puzzle
i tried really hard
to fit the
single pieces of you
together
but it just didn’t
work out
so i scattered my own pieces
and glued them to yours
the finished puzzle
is a giant mess
that does not even
make sense
but the pieces
fit together
perfectly