In 34 Years

I dream of you at 60.
Worn hands and tired eyes.
Wrinkles in all the right places from laughter.
A life of joy.

Will you find your way back to me then?
After our time apart?

I know you cannot keep me,
through these next years. 
You have to go and be.
Without me.

But please, my love,
Please.

Return to me grey and contented.
I'll love you then as I do now. 
A kiss to the inside of your wrist. 
Tracing my hands along your shoulders.
Gentle, and easy.

There's no one else with whom I welcome age.
Just you. 

Scent

I can't get the smell of you off of me.

The thing I used to love,
Crave.
Stuck, clawing to my hair and skin.

I showered twice when I got home;
After I threw up.
Yet it lingers.

I've been trying to scrub you off for months now.
Feeling like I can finally breathe,
Without catching you:
Your hair,
Body,
Clothes,
Skin,
Lurking around every corner.

But today,
You were back.
Without warning.

And now I'm once again tortured,
By the scent of you.

Uglier

My toes are uglier without you
and my knees.

I've never felt more beautiful
than when you looked at me.

And now that you refuse to look,
each piece of me is uglier.

Disfigured to my own eyes.
I was beautiful because you believed me to be.

Lost You Both

Today 
After we walked away,
I wanted to call you. 
And say,

I finally met up with him,
But it was awkward
And tense

And he didn't interact with me
Like he wanted me there.

And you would have laughed
At my awkward stories
And how I felt so wrong

But I can't call you
About you.
My person.
No longer mine.

So instead I will sit on the train
Alone
And cry.

Having lost a lover,
And a friend
All at once.

You twist the knife

watch me bleed

and walk away.

Indifferent.

Functioning

"How are you even functioning?" She asked

The truth is I'm not

I no longer know how to breathe.
Every moment I am holding back tears
and sometimes
they win.

Yesterday they beat me twice,
in a place where I never cry.
A place where I am strongest.
No one knew what to do.

"It's fine! Calm down..."
But I couldn't.

So I hyperventilated in a stairwell.
While a businessman talked on his phone,
unbothered.

And then I returned.
And fought.
And refused to quit.

I am nothing if not stubborn.
This is how I am functioning.

Lemon Seabass

In my 20s the thought of loneliness 
was unbearable.

But here I sit at 32,
alone in so many ways,
content in eating in silence.

Seabass in a lemon sauce
my only company at the table.