If I’m being honest,

I’m not sure I’m strong enough.

We write poems and songs and stories

To convince ourselves to let go

To move on

That something better will come along

Each breakup is empowering

Every heartache is a battle cry

But what if it just makes me actually cry?

Real Pepsi tears?

What if I’m not strong enough?

I thought after two weeks of silence

Two weeks of avoiding your voice

Two weeks without your touch on my skin

That I would finally let go

That I would finally stop loving you

As if I ever could

You’d think after 4 months,

4 months of knowing you would never love me the way I love you

That I would get over it

That I would learn to accept the truth

Your truth

That your love is rarer than mine will ever be

That I wasn’t ready to be loved

Am I ready now?

Like a ripe fruit or a golden pastry

I am tired of caring so much about what you think.

About where you are

About whether you are safe

I’m so tired of loving you

But I can’t help it

I’m not strong enough .

I am not yours to pluck

Although I want so badly for you to choose me and I hate myself for it.

I hate how you make me feel

I hate the way I don’t hate you

Please let me go

As if you’re the one holding me hostage

As if it isn’t my own mind

And the funniest part

The punchline of the joke;

Is that while I sit in my car

At 3AM on a Friday night

Writing this poem…

You are asleep

Maybe even next to someone new

Dreaming of all the happy little things in your life and the future you will live.

Without me.

And I doubt you think of me at all

As if my memory was a house of cards

Toppled by a distant breeze

As if you aren’t the only one I will ever love in this way.

With these memories

With this poem

And I’m not sure I’m strong enough to let that go.

And I’m not sure I’m strong enough to stop thinking of you several times a day

Stopping in the seltzer aisle

Freezing while folding laundry

Remembering your laugh over rice

Or anytime someone mentions trivia

Everything seems to remind me of you these days.

Like I can no longer distinguish which parts of me existed before I met you.

Perhaps I’m not strong enough

But I’m going to have to learn to be.