“And again my mind runs to you in the way that rivers can’t help but return to the salt.”

What a gentle curse: to still want you after all we’ve been.

She spoke with so much hope, the future dancing on her lips like a flame.

Her smile is an open flame and I have a paper heart.

It was always you who felt like water when my whole body was a flame.

Just because the pain is comfortable doesn’t mean you have to wear it.

Some days survival is all the living I can do.

There’s a weight to it, this missing you.

Her heart is heavy and ruined with hope.

Maybe I hold onto pain because I don’t know who I am without it.

I cannot lose you quietly. It will take blood and bone to pull you from my chest.

Even heartbreak can find a way to feel like home.

We built futures I’ll never get to visit. But I still have to watch them crumble.

I surround myself with trees in the hope I might become a  growing thing, too.

To hurt is simply an act of remembering. Of holding my skin to the edge in the hope I might feel anything at all.

I have no idea how I made it this far without you.

The answer is you. I forget the question.