Sour

Do you know what it’s like?

To have the rug pulled beneath your feet?

To fall into a pit of grief and emptiness?

To become a pit of grief and emptiness?

~~~

Do you know what it’s like?

When a lover’s words become a stranger’s curse?

When time imprisons your mind, hits pause and rewinds to every first with her, for the very first time?

To pack your shit in a hearse, get stuck in reverse, and leave your future behind?

~~~

Do you know what it’s like?

To swallow your own throat?

To feel it drop slowly into your stomach and consume the butterflies?

To choke on your love and her alibis and know that it will never be alright—despite what she tells you?

~~~

Does anyone know?

~~~

Do you know what it’s like to stalk posts for likes and for comments that “he” wrote?

To obsess with trying everything that might help you cope?

To convince yourself that comfort isn’t only found at the end of a knotted rope?

~~~

Do you know what it’s like?

To go back to that house where you lived with your wife?

To rummage through the scraps of your former life?

To see a jacket folded up nice and placed on the counter between some knives and flowers—the most sour surprise?

Because the Celtics aren’t your team and that’s not your size?

~~~

Do you know what it’s like?

To have a Mouth full of glass,

where each word cuts before it can pass?

~~~

Do you know what it’s like?

To watch her move on?

To skip every song that reminds you she’s gone?

To scroll through photos from before it all went so very wrong?

Or to know that the smile she has on

isn’t because of you?

~~~

I do.