The Way We Say Goodbye

 

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Introduction

I am sick of the blisters on my feet from walking on the nails that you left.

This is the way I said goodbye.

 

I only really noticed the little differences hereafter

Like I started forgetting to get the mail, and missing my trains because I was

used to someone else’s schedule.

I started bumping my shins on the coffee table again. It bruised too.

The bruise is almost shaped like that birthmark on your right shoulder, you

know the one right on your collarbone how you’d shutter when I touched it,

collapsed into my arms with that toothy grin and I’m forgetting why I even left.

Because things were so wonderful and we were so okay but I must be mindful,

because the mark you left means I’m not sure what okay means anymore.

~

This week I let the milk go sour.

Fell asleep to milk that was fine and awoke to gluggy cream in my coffee and an empty space in my bed. It’s not the only one. There are spaces in my photographs, pillow dents, and the memories that you seem to inhabit are worse, and I am stuck at that cliché soccer practice in the rain waiting for your mum to pick us up.

We ate blackberries on the back seat, wouldn’t let the juice drip onto mums blankets so we stained our Sunday best the same colour you stained every inch of my chest,

my arms,

my hips,

purple,

bruised, like that birthmark on your right shoulder,

like my shins, like the way your body felt against mine,

like you,

like me,

like how I fell in love with the way you looked at me.

 

Like how I can bring you up in conversation with confidence now,

because I’ve learnt that in time, burst blood vessels can return back to where they belong, which is to say, that bruises are made to fade.

Temporary.

Like the marks that line my shins,

like you are fading,

 

like your colours,

like your tears, like the way you made me feel is fading.

Today - I got the mail before it rained.

I got the bus before the train even arrived,

and I threw away the milk,

 

My tea tastes better black anyway. 

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