so i can breathe again.

i forgot how easily you disappoint me
and how deep my scars run even
though i can't see them. i will myself
not to remember the rings of compassion
in your eyes or the forgiveness on your
lips, or the futility of my casual conversation.
i feel a tightness in my throat and an
emptiness in my bones and i owe it all to
negligence. there are nights when i think
your arms are draped around me, but it
is just a ghostly breeze shivering through
my hair and shrugging over my shoulders.
it is clear to me now that you sleep in my
veins and that you doomed me from the
start, that you will kill me from the inside
out, and it is only now that my face shows
signs of my internal decline. i swear you are
a vicious disease, the virile kind that repeat,
or at least something parasitic that feeds
off its host whenever it pleases. already,
my mind feels fevered and my thoughts
pulse sickly as they rush, and you are
nowhere to be found except behind my
eyelids. i don't trust that image. it collects
beauty the longer it collects dust, but i
hope to god you are ugly wherever you
are, and that all the strings break
on your fucking guitar.