Where I Cut You Away

I loved you
in the way dying stars must love the dark,
completely,
desperately,
until there was nothing left of me
that did not ache with your name.

You lived inside my routines.
Inside the quiet pauses of my day.
Inside every song I could not hear anymore
without feeling my ribs crack open.

And still,
I had to cut you out of me.

Do you understand
what kind of agony that is?

To look at someone
you would have bled for,
burned for,
buried yourself alive for,
and realize
they are destroying you slowly enough
that you almost call it love.

I left with trembling hands.
With tears so violent
I could barely breathe through them.
I left while every soft part of me
screamed to stay.

Because losing you
felt like peeling my own skin away.
Like tearing stitches from a wound
that never healed right to begin with.

You were woven into me.
In my laughter.
In my sleeping habits.
In the empty side of my bed
that still feels haunted.

God, I still reach for you sometimes.

Still think of sending you things
before remembering
I am not allowed
to love you out loud anymore.

And that is the cruelest part,
you do not stop loving someone
the moment you leave them.

Sometimes you leave
because you love them
more than you love yourself,
and staying would finish the job
they started inside you.

So I became cruel enough
to save my own life.

I cut you away
while it felt like my soul
was being dragged behind you
begging not to go.

And now there is this terrible silence
where you used to be.

This awful emptiness.
This missing piece of me
I keep touching
like a tongue probing a broken tooth.

But even shattered bones
learn new shapes when they heal.

Even ruined hearts
keep beating out of instinct.

And maybe one day
I will remember you
without feeling like I am drowning
in the middle of my own chest.

Maybe one day
your name will not taste like grief.

But today,
loving you still hurts.
And leaving you
hurt worse.

Penned by my hand on Gosday, the 18th of Sapiarch, in the year 19 AC.