This Is How I Finally Healed From You

By

I used to think healing would mean closing all wounds,
stitching gaping spaces and letting scars make a home
out of you, inside of you.
They used to say that to stop the pain,
you have to stop the bleeding.
But with you, it was never like that.
It will never be like that.
You were the wound that cannot be closed,
that cannot be stitched back together.
You were the pain I kept coming back to, the
pain I’d always willingly crave. To heal
from you meant that I had to bleed
myself out. I had to claw my wounds
and scars until I bleed, until my insides open.

To heal meant I had to bleed and bleed
until I no longer bleed red, but only
black and blue.

Because that’s what it means to heal
from you, I had to empty myself
of you, no trace of the subtle kisses you’ve
mapped on my spine. No 4 am conversations of
how we would always stay, of how we would
always be together. No midnight whispers of
promises we always seemed to have
broken.
To heal from you
meant that I had to
unmend myself.