i should be over you by now.

it’s long overdue. been years since we met face to face.
i seem to miss the memory of you more than the reality
or do i? i can never tell anymore. sometimes i want to sleep with you again
so i can remember why we don’t do this anymore.

i can reflect, now- my introspection
leads me to the knowledge that we were bound to clash
a warm front against the cold. and yet-
and yet i still feel wistful when reminded of you.
i still long for you (past what is healthy)
every time my naked feet touch the soil
of somewhere new.

how is it that i have shared my bed with many since you left
and yet my dreams are haunted by your eyes. those eyes...
the way they looked into my inner core unsettled me
more than i would ever admit. my pride is strong
and my knees are skinned raw.

i know now that my words did not all stem from a chemical reaction.
long after us, my heart squeezes itself dry whenever we speak.
i don’t believe in soulmates anymore. just as well
because if i did, i’d have to accept your loss as something more significant.
and i have a lover now, you have a lover now, we have lives apart
it would never have worked out..

but your words still rip me to shreds, your eyes still bore into me.
you disarm me. i am not accustomed to letting my feelings get the best of me:
not anymore. but you always had that talent.
i used to hate you for it. and now-
and now, i wonder how you still have the power to melt me, how
you still have the power to let poetry bleed from my fingertips.

i kiss my lover and sometimes wish it was you. and i hate myself for my weakness
and the memory of you for shaking my composure.
i have an incredible life, a life relatively free of the turmoil it had with you in it
and yet i have that feeling in my gut that whispers “but what if, what if...”

you leave me a mess,
thoughts scattered among shreds of poetry
that should, by now, be irrelevant.