You promised me forever.

Your tears will never fall like rain, watching me walk the isle. I'll never wear your ring on my finger, or that white wedding dress.

Not for you.

Because hopes of forever and a none chocolate wedding cake are gone.

Gone with you.

We'll never put up our own tree, or hang worn out stockings in our cheep apartment. Because you'll never love me, and we'll never share sheets again.

You will never be my valentine. No amount of paper hearts can change that. But I still cut them out.

You won't be the one I tell my daughters about. You won't keep the title of my one and only. I'll take that back, someday.

You'll be striped of your honor and banished from my kingdom.

Someday my knight in shining armor will wear diapers, and he'll call me mommy. His Daddy will be the kindest king there ever was. And I'll be Queen of our castle.

I will be happy.


And you won't cross my mind.

I'll cross yours. She'll insist on chocolate, and you'll miss me.

Your preacher will ask for objections, and it'll will be you who can't find peace much less hold it.

Because in your head it's my innocent kiss you long for. It's my smile you miss, and my love you wish for on every star.

It's my void you can't fill.

And you'll run, and run, and run. The way you should have ran after me.


I'll be in Jamba Juice. With a toddler in my stroller, and a baby in my belly. My ring will sparkle, and my face will glow. "Because it's a girl" the cashier says. And you'll see, everything you let go of.

Your tears will fall like rain. And your heart will break, just like mine did so many years ago.

I'll speak as if you'd hear me, and you'll listen like the leaves.

Hungry hands tear at my tissue paper skin. Every breath feels like the oceans swell, and I can taste my heart beating at the back of my throat.

This is it Sally. This is the unattainable glory your empty heart aches for, and yet your insides are a rainstorm.

Love is poison and my addiction is irreversible. So I'll turn all the oven knobs and lay my soul on the stovetop. Fill my cup and hide the bendy straws. Love is a poison, and I'm afraid I've started to build a tolerance for it.

You can kiss me with the kitchen knives, and I'll sing to you from the all the places I run. Pack our hearts in a picnic basket and return only pieces of mine. Broken is all I've known, broken is all I am.

The scars from scolding water fade, but these memories never will. They whistle and they wail and they always bring me back to your name. My desperate hopes grow love like weeds and hate like green grass. The dandelions tell me to run, but I've become accustom to the pain inside these fences.