again and still: poem

nothing hurts more

than loving you again

in the same ruined way,

after clawing my way out

of the grave you put me in,

after convincing my lungs

they didn’t miss drowning.

I kissed healing

like it was permanent.

I wore hope like perfume,

soft, foolish, floral lies.

I told myself:

never again.

I whispered:

I won’t survive him twice.

but I saw your name

and my ribs cracked open

like they’d been waiting.

I let you in

like rot through a reopened wound.

there’s pus in the places

I once called poetry.

your absence was cleaner

than your return.

I am here again,

on my knees,

in the same ash.

all the progress?

a pretty little lie.

I was never healing.

I was just

waiting for the next collapse.

and God..

you ruined me so gently.