The Sharpness of Your Claws

Did you think you could wash away the memories with hair dye and cover the wounds with a simple change of clothes?

I was never so foolish. I press the farewells to my skin like flowers in a closed book, saving them for later even whilst knowing they will look different with time. (Even knowing they were never pretty to begin with.)

Tell me, did carving out your heart rid you of the guilt? Did the hole in your chest hurt less with the knowledge that you had hollowed it out yourself?

Did you feel powerful, walking away? Did you feel powerful, leaving me there? Did you feel powerful, knowing your absence had cut the tendons in my legs and I couldn’t even get off the floor?

I used to write about how your gentle hands held my world together as if it were a pile of precarious cards. Now I lament about the sharpness of your claws and how apathetic you are about where they cut.

I’ll never understand how warmth can so quickly freeze over and a feather can so nonsensically turn to stone.

Here is my confession: your absence is liberating but the damage you left lingers like an infection, and I cannot seem to find any kind of antibiotic for it. I’m sure it must be your explanation, but you clutch that as tightly to your chest as you once held your affections for me. I wonder if you’ll one day drop it in the same way.

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