I miss you. As your gaze pierces my eyes you twist the knife lodged deep in my heart retching my soul. We used to cry after laughing not before it. Open windows and park dates became surprise visits I couldn’t tell my parents about and covered shifts. A cold wraith had ripped you away from me that first shift he worked. The dragon’s claw gaping your chest and heart open spilling out your love and time. He was the world, he was perfect. We stayed up on the phone talking about how he looked at you and how tomorrow was the day. The day couldn’t come late enough for me. I never saw what you saw but a loving tint shines through blindness. Red heart eyes turning paper pink like cherry blossoms. He infested your heart with seeds of trust and care that blossomed into hanging bradfords drooping rosey leaves over your eyes hiding foul fruits and cutting lines. Lines cut when drawn and denied when announced. Even though I can see the scars on your skin and empty follicles gashing your once beautiful head of hair. I don’t recognize you, you aren’t the girl I once loved. You aren’t the girl I still love. The Vanessa that brightened rooms with a smile and made words dance even through a phone screen. She’s been missing for years, lost in a mess of smoke and glass. Shattered mirrors, beaming fluorescents, droning monitors all hum in silent pain. Pain that was all too obvious to any one paying attention. Paying attention to you drove me broke and broken, drained of any peace of mind. Gave away pieces of mine to get pieces off your mind but you still didn't mind paying me no mind. A twister of ecstasy and despair pulling hair like crop and opening wounds like barn doors leaving no survivors in its wake. It was so obvious he wasn’t good for you that surely you could see it to at a point ; no good man makes you love him. Any one worth loving doesn’t need love justified. No one worth loving needs the idea of loving them justified. He couldn’t just quit now after the years they had been together. He was used to her abuse in a way you weren’t. You grew up too sweet and too smart to ever tangle with her likes. He needed her in weak moments because she dug the grave he tripped into. You thought you could fix him. Obviously if you just loved him harder he would choose you over her and you two could live happily ever after. Nothing could separate them. Stepping between them only got you caught in her grasp never to escape. Their is no one time with someone her like. The last time became just last time. I remember you called me one morning with rasp in your voice and regret in every last cough. Obviously I could cover your shift for the day if you were feeling under the weather. We had been friends since before either of us could spell weather. When I heard you were seeing some one for lunch obviously I was excited. I assumed prince charming had come to sweep you off your feet. You seemed stressed but at any word you couldn’t be happier. His whims and whispers blasting over any of your silent tears. We couldn’t hang out at your place anymore for now obvious reasons. You stopped showering, you started to smell like tears and burnt ends. Books started rattling like bottles in your back pack and your car’s carpet darkened with yellowish bleach blotches. The old Vanessa died during junior year and a part of me went with her. I will always love her. The woman in front of me is a husk of what Vanessa used to be and a blemish to what she could’ve been. I cant stop myself from seeing Vanessa in front of me but I know you aren’t her. Flesh and body concealing a new blackened soul. Vanessa, I miss you.