There is a blanket atop my pillow,
tucked into my sleeping arms.
If you look at it closely,
you can see particles of my tears glistening on it.
Sometimes,
you can see sorrow threaded through it—-
crooked lines of sorrow that look like my shivering veins.
My blood zig-zags across it too…
Blood that spilled out of my shins and onto the blanket when I was younger,
and I didn’t know any better than to pretend that I was not hurt,
and that I did not need help,
and I still do that sometimes.
But,
I’m getting better…
there’s less blood seeping out of my sorry head
(sorry because you left,
and I didn’t even try to follow you out our—-my?—-wooden door
covered in warped hearts and our messy initials),
and less dusty imprints of heartbreak at the foot of my lonely bed,
and the grip I have around the black and white photograph of you is loosening.
Soon, I might even drop it,
and you will become just another face peering out at me from a dusty, old photo album
full of faceless lovers who ought to be familiar-looking strangers.