I wish he had never let go

I wish I had never made a home over the edge

I wish I had pulled us both away from the flames that would leave me cold as ash in the wind…

I supposed I was difficult

In the end—

No not the end

This can’t be the end

Can it?

I didn’t mean it to be an end

It isn’t an end is it?

It’s not my end

Just in part

Though whole this pain does feel

I was the problem

Or was I the victim?

I was scared

I was embarrassed

I was callous

Perhaps I can’t love anyone right

I always thought I could

My heart was so large

But it seems pleasure grew with pain

Like an artery large and purple, or a blossom tight with hidden petals

I never thought I could hurt myself

Not more than I already was

Hatred was my drink of choice

And I imbibed like a woman dying of thirst

And yet

When the piece of me he tucked into his heart drove itself through my own

I didn’t even see it coming

Hadn’t I given him the softest parts of my soul?

Hadn’t I pillowed his fall?

Why did this discarded shard feel so jagged?

I thought of the cracked and imperfect piece of myself

Lodged in his chest

And I wondered how long I had lived like a wound

Taking pain from him with the very best

He had loved a blade like a flower

And languished under my iron petals

I was never meant for a garden

But the world grows ever colder without the heat of the greenhouse

And my world begins to snow

I wish…

I wish I had never let go