Misery Business

I thought I would miss;

Your touch

Your voice

Your essence

I played sad music…

Willing it to elicit an emotion from my heart

To drown me in the grief of your absence

As the clock ticked,

I found I didn’t miss you

I missed the story of you,

Of us

That I had crafted with intricate precision

Blostered by empty promises and broken wishes

Held together with the duct-taped bits of my soul

Nurtured in the fantasy of potential

The creases in the corners of your eyes when you smile

The ruggedness of your hands

The huskiness of your breath as you sleep

I painted a whole world in the little pieces of you that brought me joy

Hoping they would be enough to bury all the harm

Praying my tears didn’t wash them away

Revealing the broken heart underneath

But time always keeps score

And the reality was that those little things weren’t enough

My heart had seen through the contorted statue we called love

It knew the hand upon my back held a knife…

…that the whispered sweet nothings were wrapped in malice

It knew under the facade lay a hollowness that rattled my bones

A yearning snuffed by indifference and dismissal

Placated with fairy tales of who we could be if things were different

The truth lay bare in your absence

Echoed in the chambers of my heart

I wept for the story, I wept for the potential

When it was all said and done

With tear-stained cheeks

My heart had said goodbye; it had grieved in the dark

Cutting the tether that bound my covetous mind

Freeing me from the story of us

Letting me see clearly

The unredacted truth of what we were…

and what we could never be

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