A litany of things I tried to tell you

  in alphabetical order

Even if you never read this, you'll still feel it.

I am erasing you, slowly.
I am learning to forget as a self-defense mechanism.
I am making an artform of my own heartache as an enviable talent.
I am making small but meaningful improvements.
I am making something millable out of this, I am.
I am milling around in the quiet space you left, feeling fragile.
I am not a nostalgic person.
I am not a very good person.
I am not eating all my meals anymore.
I am starting not to love you anymore.
I am starting to adore my own unlikely need.
I am starting to like it.
I am sure you know by now:
I am taking nothing back, even if
I am the one you are losing, remember?

I can't read maps, but
I could mill a life so full, there’s no room for you anymore.

I don't feel like a ghost. I am not a ghost.

I don't know anything for sure anymore.
I don't tell you everything I am thinking anymore.
I don't tell you what I'm thinking anymore.
I don't want to haunt you anymore.

I finally realized it was the compass that was broken.
I finally realized the map wasn't even right, and anyway
I have a bad feeling about all of this.

I have a question with a devastating hypothetical inside of it.
I have no rules or secrets anymore.
I keep ripping pages out of my notebook.
I keep saying I am trying.

I know you'll be okay without me, but not the same.
I love you less and less.
I never said I would keep searching until I found you.

I never said I would.

I once had a long list of questions for you, but I answered them myself.
I still think of how beautiful you are, how
I suspect you will grow to miss me terribly.

I tore your pages out of my notebooks and stopped writing your name.
I touch my own folding spine now.
I try to focus on the things I dislike about you.

I used to be yours; now I am mine.
I used to imagine: [         ]
I used to miss you all the time.
I used to want to wish you were here.

I want to be let in. I said,
“I was your first full stop, wasn't I?”
Wasn't I?

I will still be the death of you.
I wish I wouldn't.

I would do it all again, but I wish I wouldn't.
I would do it all again, even if
it just took a long time.

Looking at your diaphragm:
my dear, my darling
my very dark cloud.

Of course you'll remember things
okay? I did.
(or bring them back from the dead).

There's no room for you anymore.
Would I do this all again?

Write down everything and
when it's over (and it's almost over, I promise) just know
you cannot hold someone you love underwater

"You’ll remember things
you wish you didn't," I read somewhere.

Your face fits your face. Fits the palms of my hands.