Your cardigan doesn’t smell the same.

It smells unfamiliar, distant, old—

Just like you.

 

I haven’t washed it because

I enjoyed spoiling myself with

the remainder of your scent.

 

It doesn’t smell good anymore.

 

Once intoxicating and addictive,

The pleasure has faded with time.

I can’t get that same feeling—

that same high—

anymore.

 

Lover’s high;

You are my drug

and it’s time I did something good for myself:

it’s time to wean myself off you.

 

I tried it all September,

but it wasn’t by my choice,

it was by your aloofness,

your coldness.

 

I wasn’t strong enough.

 

I experienced withdrawal symptoms.

 

Everything triggered me.

 

My mind always wandered

to you—it still does.

 

I didn’t feel broken,

but I felt numb, lost.

 

It was like I was forced to exist.

It wasn’t living, it wasn’t healthy.

 

I relapsed so many times;

I’ve broken down so many times.

 

I was determined—

yesterday—

to be true to my word of not

wanting boys in my life.

 

That includes you.

Get out of my head,

Your rent is past due.

 

What you make me feel,

outweighs the good that

has ever come from my time

with you.

 

I was confident yesterday

and the day before.

 

I’m relapsing right as write this—

just texting you, asking about college,

hurts more than words can describe.

 

You said the line that makes

all the memories come rushing back

in a blur.

 

I don’t see them individually,

and reliving them is too painful,

but I see bits and pieces

of all the times that made me fall

oh so hard for you.

 

I was so happy,

just being in your presence.

 

Then I come back to the present,

and tears come more freely.

 

Being with you was paradise,

like spending a day in a field—

sunshine—

warmth—

laughter—

romance—

bliss.

 

Revisiting those memories

It’s like coming back in winter time

after it has been set ablaze.

There is no life, no happiness,

no sunshine.

Cold, dead, numbing;

leaves a bitter after taste in my lungs

and drains all of my hope away.

 

You are still cold and distant,

but on a whole new level;

You leave me in tears.

--October 15, 2013