The Ways We Say Goodbye

I hate you

I growl          

My voice is echoing in the silence between us

I mean it

I just can’t…

I trail away

Averting my gaze

I can’t think of any words for what I feel for you

At that precise instant

So I pause

But it doesn’t last long

I shout at you

For what feels like years

I scream curse words that don’t belong in a place like this

I yell about how I should’ve run away

The day I met you

About how I never should’ve talked to you

About how the knives you drove into me

Were unlike any other

And how you hurt me

In ways I never could’ve imagined

Your utter silence kills me

I end my rant with a scream

I should just throw all of your stuff

Out onto the curb right now!

The only sound in the graveyard

Are the tweets of birds

I sink down in front of your gravestone

But I won’t

I whisper

Voice cracking on won’t

I don’t say anything after that

Because what can I say

The same things I say every anniversary

Say I’ll never throw your stuff away

Because after two years

It still smells like you

Say that I still leave our door unlocked

Because I’m still hoping that you’ll have just forgotten your key

And you’ll walk in like nothing happened

Say that I was right about you wearing a helmet

When you rode that goddamned motorcycle

Apparently helmets don’t help as much as you’d think

When trucks hit you

But it might have counted for something

I don’t say this, though

Instead I put my flowers down

Kiss your gravestone

And walk away.

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