This is to Alexis, for the worst year out of all of our worst years.

There is a poem somewhere that says something like “Love is the only war worth dying for”, and I used to believe in that.

But this love.

This love turned mood swings into foreplay and made my name rhyme with toxic, and I told you I would not die for this less than perfect love.

But you, you said you would die for less than perfect any day.

You were gone for six months and when you came back, you wouldn’t tell me if it was intentional this time. All you said was “I wish they had let me die,” and all I could think was “Me too.”

I didn’t want to write that line. Didn’t want to say it out loud. But I didn’t want to keep it inside of me either. Couldn’t live with it screaming for release. 

In spite of that, I stayed. In spite of my historically poor choices in relationships, I stayed. I talked you down from the ledge because I loved you,  but Lex, can’t you hear the sirens? Can’t you see the blood? We both know I stayed for too long.

But still, I loved you when I left.

I know you gave me your whole heart, Alexis.

But your heart was all kinds of rotted. Your heart was “I’d cut myself for you.” Your heart was “I’d die for you.” I couldn’t live like that, Lex, like every downhill was a cliff face. Like every uphill was a mountain.

When we were eleven, you said we were hemispheres. Two sides of the same earth.

I never wanted to be your better half, Lex.

I never wanted a crack the size of the equator running through my body.

I never wanted to carry this guilt, but you didn’t care about what I wanted.

You just put me on trial for your mistakes, you made me take that belt to my back because you couldn’t live with what this love made you. With what you made yourself.

But the worst part is there is something so sweet in all this pain.

Something that’s got me coming back for the sickness, that’s got me feeding this fever, so if you still need me to carry the guilt for you, I will.

If you need me to take that belt to my back, I will.

I know I owe you at least one death for this love.

But I have to say, it wasn’t all bad, because when they ask me why I loved you, I tell them about how you loved ice skating. I tell them about how you were terrified of kissing me and that you loved to wear my jacket. I tell them about how you were nearly perfect to me.

But I don’t tell them that sometimes, we didn’t talk for months. Or that you got jealous of everyone, or that you didn’t like my poetry. I don’t tell them about that s*** because I didn’t love that part of you.

I didn’t want to admit that to you, but I also don’t want to be the kind of person who carries those words around in my pocket.

Now I’m not saying I was perfect. You know I wasn’t. I had sleeves longer than my relationships and the kind of lying streak that could send a whole city up in flames. All I’m saying, Lex, is that you loved the pain.

Last year, I wrote you a poem called “Wish” when I was trying to wish you gone.

I am writing this poem because I am wishing you my very, very best.

I am wishing you all the sky you could ever ask for.

I am wishing you boys who are nothing like me.

I am wishing you a thousand perfect years.

I am wishing you a love that you do not have to die for.