February And Traces Of You

By

A pot of black coffee getting cold,
Scattered letters with missing feelings and some words.
Ink stains on my hands and burn stains in my heart,
I still try and catch a whiff of your breath on mine.
If I close my eyes and take a deep breath, I can feel
your head in my lap, your words on my mouth…
You’d say, I’m messy but beautiful
and that you loved me for being raw and vulnerable.
But you were black souled and bitter, just like my coffee
and you left burning kisses all over my naked soul.
I should have known…
I should have seen it coming…
Whenever I’d ask, ‘What do you love about me?’
or ‘How do you see “us” in the future?’,
You’d smile, that mysterious, make me weak-in-the-knees kinda smile,
and string together beautiful sentences that spoke of love and relationships.
But what was real, I wonder now?
Those empty words or how they made me feel?

I remember the night we first felt.
The dancing light through a single lamppost
cutting through the glistening rain, made you break out into a song;
Your singing voice so full and voluptuous under the February sky.
It was like seeing you for the first time.
You twirled me then, like you’d done so many times before.
But I felt different in that second between your smile and wink.
We were drenched by the time we reached the campsite,
You set up a bonfire and I made us some tea,
and wrapped under the blanket of stars we shared a secret kiss.
I felt a vale of emotions, pulled back and whispered ‘Sorry’,
but you placed your palm on my cheek and said ‘Hey, it’s me.’
The next 1090 days we enjoyed the solitude of us,
writing dreams on each other’s bodies,
of a future filled with Lana Del Rey and Europe travels.
You opened my heart to possibilities;
you healed me. And then you broke me.

A pot of black coffee getting cold
Scattered letters with missing feelings and some words.
Ink stains on my hands and burn stains in my heart,
I try and piece my broken heart together.
I lost love and friendship, all at once, when you walked out;
I’m not sure how to go on without you now,
you were the one who was supposed to stay…
But here I am, filling ashtrays after ashtrays
erasing your memory into a smoke,
cleansing myself of the traces of you.
I am hoping I’ll learn to walk the Earth alone,
and listen to Lana Del Rey without crying.
I am hoping to get through this cold loveless February
without you.
without that smile and that singing voice.
without your empty words and numb songs.
I can’t deny your thoughts will make me daze every now and then.
But I’m learning to love again, love consciously, love this broken mess I am.