Goodbyes are the Devil

She felt a bodily hope.

He allowed her to love herself.

She’d never considered it before.

Her desires were red, 

dripping with sins

against her own body.

Her soul left untouched, 

now on fire.

Goodbyes are the devil.

Breathing is impossible

when there’s a black hole caught in your windpipe.

Desperation.

She knew he “would create the very injury” he “promises to heal.”(35.)

Another flooded home.

Grief replaced relief.

She’d never known purity,

she began to admire this about herself.

Still, she cried.

It only stopped when she thought about the possibility of leaving herself;

if they both left her

in some twisted, imaginary way they’d be together.

Wishing it wasn’t happening strengthened the black hole.

She’d felt as if her whole life

every moment of pain

every ounce of suffering

was what she had to pay to find the gods in his eyes

and all that time

she’d been making her way into his arms.

She judged herself for having such girlish hope

then reprimanded herself for that thought.

She swore she’d keep this feeling, 

anything to make it last.

She did.

She knew the vulnerability of allowing love to smash through your entire being

and now it was as if it had never existed.

(quote from The Sweet Relief of Missing Children by Sarah Braunstein, also clearly heavily influenced by her)