when you left i forgot how to speak, my tongue grew heavy in my mouth, a slab of raw liver, awkwardly flapping up and down but the noises that came out were little more than moans and groans

i lost the ability to conjugate, to articulate, to conversate, to concentrate on anything but was that my phone, was that the door, was that a car pulling up, was that her

it wasn’t, we both knew it wouldn’t be, we both knew it was hope in the absence of said hope, of need in absence of reciprocation, of the banks of a river missing the lapping waves, of your final wave, of panic coming in waves, of waves of crashing despair

i forgot how to speak

words trickled out with no rhyme nor reason, just ways of filling the awkward silence that was the only blanket left in this empty home, the only currency left in this empty account that you cleared out as you ran without looking back

and my head was on a perpetual swivel, catching a glimpse of you out of the corner of my eye, the flickering afterimage of the bomb you dropped that left me burnt onto the couch, a shade of where a person used to be

A shade of where a person used to be

you my nagasaki death cycle, my hiroshima cleansing flame, me the fat man you let fall, arms open hoping to catch you, you nothing but the crack of the sound barrier being broken, me nothing but the sound of being broken

a deaf mute jumping at noises i feel more than hear, i feel more than i should, than i imagined i would, than i dreamt that I could

we both knew there was a shelf life no matter how many promises of forever were sweatily whispered, forever is only for death, life and love only last so long, eventually even our bones become dust

but none of it matters as i forgot how to speak and instead just vomit words and hope they make sense

they don’t