I feel a tightness in my chest
every time I think of you

Distraction in my temper, flowing
every time I wander
to the time we spent together

I feel my heart flutter
(that I used phrases like that
in the height of our dreaming)
with a closing, miserable pain
every time
I think
of how much time I wasted
in this abyss of thinking
I could cure you

and of how much hate
you've given me
since I realized I couldn't
(of the scarring in your eyes)
and therefore left
to save myself
from losing myself too.

every time I turn

to how you won't seem to grasp
that I needed this

to how that throws the love I tried to give you in my face and makes me burn

to all your horrible horrible fears.

(Sometimes love and disgust evoke such
similar, if crippling,
responses.)