A litany of things I tried to tell you

in chronological order


I have a bad feeling about all of this.
I have a question with a devastating hypothetical inside of it.
I once had a long list of questions for you,
but I answered them myself.
I am the one you are losing, remember?
I am not a very good person, but I keep saying
I am trying.
I want to be let in, I said looking at your diaphragm.
I used to imagine: [            ]
I am making an artform of my own heartache as an enviable talent.
I am starting to adore my own unlikely need.
I am making something millable out of this, I am.
I could mill a life so full, there's no room for you anymore.
I am milling around in the quiet space you left, feeling fragile.
I am starting to like it.
I used to be yours; now I am mine.
My dear, my darling, my dark cloud.
I have no rules or secrets anymore.
I am sure you know by now:
you cannot hold someone you love
underwater or bring them back
from the dead.
I was your first full stop, wasn't I?
Wasn't I?
I don't know anything for sure anymore.
I don't want to haunt you anymore.
I never said I would keep searching until I found you.
I don't tell you what I'm thinking anymore.
I am making small but meaningful improvements.
I am trying not to love you anymore.
I still think of how beautiful you are,
how your face fits your face. Fits the palms of my hands.
I don't tell you everything I am thinking anymore.
I am not a nostalgic person.
I try to focus on the things I dislike about you.
I love you less and less.
I am erasing you, slowly.
I used to miss you all the time.
I used to want to talk to you even when I was talking to you.
I finally realized the compass was broken, it just took a long time.
I finally realized the map wasn't right,
and really I can't read maps.
I touch my own folding spine now.
I will still be the death of you.
I would do it all again, but I wish I wouldn't.
I don't feel like a ghost. I am not a ghost.
I know you'll be okay without me, but not the same.
I am learning to forget as a self-defense mechanism.
I tore your pages out of my notebooks and stopped writing your name.
"Write down everything and of course you'll remember
things you wish you didn't," I read somewhere.
Even if you never read this, you'll still feel it.
I suspect you will grow to miss me terribly.
When it's over (and it's almost over, I promise)
just know I meant everything I’ve said
even if I wish I didn't.
Would I do it all again?
I wish I wouldn't.