Once More With Feeling (WIP)

There are references to the new Star Wars movie everywhere I go and they choke me because we saw it twice in two days

We hate-watched the prequels together and now jar jar binks makes me cry

That was your birthday

When I met half your family at once and it was overwhelming but it meant so damn much to me

Even if your mum's dog did eat my shoelaces

When she said in Rebecca 'you are my father my brother and my son' I didn't realise what she meant until now

We raised each other and grew up together

I lost a whole family in you

I hope you find yourself in the mountains of Vietnam

Or in the backstreets of South Ealing at 4am

And become a person whole enough to love another person for more than six months at a time

There's splinters of you left in everything I touch

You're like those erasable pens that are never really erasable,

You left smudges across my life I can't scrub away without tearing the paper it's built on

When you break up you're supposed to only remember the good parts

A dangerous nostalgia tells you it was better than it was

But I thought we were good

And now I only remember the pieces of grit between the tiles

Arguing about whether to put olive oil in the pasta water

The way you said my name when I got under your feet that made me want to be crushed

Times you asked me why I was crying and I didn't know the answer

Moments that felt Not Quite Right

And I hate that this is all you left me when I know we were happy most of the time

I said I don't know what to do now

You said I'd have to learn to hate you and I am genuinely fucking offended that you think that's even possible

I said I thought we had a future together

And you said 'I'm so sorry'

But you didn't say 'so did I' and that is a lie by omission because only a few weeks ago you said you'd be willing to give up London for me

Only a few weeks ago we spanned two years ahead and now we are only the past

How can I let go of the years we never lived through?

I said I'd always love you

And you said

Well I mean im not gonna forget you

As if that needed clarification

Damn right you are never gonna forget me

I demand to scar you because you scraped me out like an apple core

I got used to the sound of your undiagnosed sleep apnea and now I think I may have to invest in a chainsaw to sleep soundly again

And the thing no one tells you about long distance relationships

Is that technology becomes a Eucharist

Your phone IS their body

Your text alert is the sound of them

And even after they've dissolved from your existence

Every vibration is bad news delivered in their voice

I'm glad I gave you so many presents because I know by the state of your room you will never tidy them away

I've seen the batman shampoo I bought you last Christmas still sitting on your bedside table unopened

I hope it whispers my name into your ear whilst you sleep

I hope you find an uneaten Reeses peanut butter cup somewhere and it makes you sick because it tastes like me

I hope you see my fingerprints on every single thing I touched

I hope you never play Fifa without thinking of that one time we played it together and I scored one goal

Against myself

I hope you find a sock or a piece of discarded underwear under a pile of laundry and it

breaks

you

I don't understand why people keep asking me if I've talked to you

If you wanted time or space I would have given you a fucking galaxy but that's not what you asked for

And I have only just come to the realisation that if you were as committed to this as I was it would not be over

You didn't give me a break you gave me an ending and I leaped off it

One week after you walked away and I wish I could see the look on your face

If you knew how many guys are messaging me on tinder even as I write this

And I think it's kinda sad that some of them are making more effort to get up my skirt than you did to stay in my life

The sproutlings of the Grow Your Own Bonsai kit you bought me because I said I wanted my room to have more life in it

Were already dead by the time I got back

And I thought

How fitting

And threw them out the fucking window

Now it's been four weeks, a one night stand and countless bottles of Tesco value vodka

I've used up every emotion I'm capable of

and I've forgotten how to write an essay but I'm having a really good time not caring

And, sure, I still imagine ways I could see you again

Just like I did last Christmas

With a non refundable coach ticket to Victoria and memories of magpies on opposite sides of the road

But this time I don't see them crossing

The only reason I ever want to see you again is to say all this to your face

Because I've never seen you cry and I'd quite like to be the reason

But I honestly don't care enough to actually call you

So I'll say this shit to some strangers instead and make them feel something or maybe laugh

Like the bitter, mad, strong, joyful, pass-me-the-vodka cackle that for the last four weeks has inevitably been my answer to the question

'Are you okay?'

And I realise this isn't the poem I thought I was writing in my head listening to Beyoncé and staring out of a coach window

And all I've really done is write a list of scattered thoughts I've had about you lying in my bed and trying to read through the tears but I could not make an artwork of you because you are not mine to paint now

and I could not find syntax in this shitstorm

So instead I've been painting galaxies and strong women who look like me

And I've written whatever the fuck this is

And in the end

At least I will never again have to watch a four hour long Dragon Ball Z fight on YouTube

Or eat your mother's food