sweatshirts

Preparation

He emptied me of my organs before he left, removing each according to custom, delicately taking out each and putting them into new receptacles. They were meaningless things anyway, my organs, worthless as fillers when I couldn’t feel anything but empty.

His words smelled perfumed on the surface, but they curled up into my nose, turning cold and hard as they pureed my brain like a thin spike in his hands. The matter dripped from my ears, but even as it ran down my shoulders, I thought to myself that my brain smelled nice, too. Most of his harvesting practices were predictable, yet one was particularly unexpected.

He cut out my heart. He encased it not in an elaborate vase but in the bottom of his basketball duffel bag, forgot about it, and threw it in the corner of his apartment. He forgot about my heart, my most important organ, my center of feeling, which pulsed every moment for him.

He took it when it was still beating; my skin turned to wax as its absence drained me of blood. However, someone who can forget about someone’s heart can also forget other, less important things. He did not finish my ceremony; he took no part in my embalming, in my wrapping, or in the passing into my life without him there, the afterlife. But he forgot his sweatshirt here, his favorite one. I’ll crawl into it and to be surrounded by the artifacts he’d left behind, memories and smells and cat hairs. This is where I will live now that I am dead, now that we are dead.

I am a pharaoh. This is my tomb.

Entrance

Weed before anything else, smoke before you go in.

If you don’t, the darkness will be so clear; it will be

as if you are still alive and that he will be here after a

moment. But dear, you cannot revive what is dead

and that is you. He struts around without a clue that

his sweatshirt will take the place of his arms and do

what he should have done, goes to school and acts

like nothing is wrong as if you won’t be curled up in

warmth that smells like him again soon. Bring me the bowl,

it’ll help me remember what his eyes looked like up close

and forget that he thinks that I’m crazy, too.

my nose pressed against fabric instead of the gold mask

which usually adorns those of noble birth and I let the earth

spin as I begin my life of eternal unrest.

Waiting

It soaks up my tears before they can even leave my eyes. It reminds me of when you would ask me to tell you stories; once you asked me if I ever cried. You said that you did sometimes, when you thought about your dad. I remember you reaching over and grabbing my hand in the middle of the night when we were supposed to be sleeping. I kept my eyes closed, but I squeezed your hand back because it was shaking.

I could smell your tears, but I knew you didn’t want me to look. He visited you the most at night, and you would wake up shaking, tears leaking and sweat skating down the armpits of this same sweatshirt that I’m wearing now. My head sits now where your ribcage used to rest, and I can smell your fear of losing him again.

You visit me the most at night, though I never leave what you left me. I wake up shaking and sweating, reaching out to grab your hand and squeeze, but you are not there for me. Before the tears can leave the crooks of my eyes, I smell your fear mixing with my own and flowing from the pits of this sweatshirt that I haven’t cleaned in months, and I remember who I am and what you did to me.

Then the tears recede. I shiver for only a moment more and then I go back to sleep.

Afterlife

I’ve slept in this place for so long and the torment it brings

reminds me of when I was a leader, a god, before I fell for

a man who didn’t appreciate my infallibility. The custom is

to give a pharaoh every comfort she needs to live after death

but I die every day existing in this impression of your stability.

This is it for me; I am letting myself suffer in a pit of memory.

You took my life, babe, but I need back my eternity and let’s

face it, you brought out the worst in me. I can see what I’ve been

missing, wrapped up in your discards and reminiscing on back

when I used to be great, before you, before I knew what it was like

to be abused and left alone or nearly so, me and your sweatshirt

overheating together. I can’t shed it, but I must because my

life can be so much better than what it’s become. We will never

truly live again, but goodbye, warm friend, shadow of what we lived.

We failed, and now it’s time for me to

Rest.

#past #breakups #pain #POETRY