KEYCHAIN.

“In a place as dark as this, you’re bound to be a light for someone.”

- abby

Let go of what doesn’t bring you happiness: feelings, objects, people…

I look back now and know that younger me is so proud

WAR.

Three rotations around the sun,

and sometimes I’m still not over it,

I know the war is what I won,

But those battle plans just won’t quit.

I dug many trenches back when fighting,

years later, they aren’t filled,

‘Should I’ve done things different?’ Keeps me awake,

With sleep deprivation, I’m skilled.

I think of who I might have been if you hadn’t happened,

But if not, I wouldn’t have met that man, I wouldn’t have stole his hat and,

Put it on; “combat vet” it read right on brim,

The two of us weren’t so different, we both had wars we tried to win.

But that’s the thing about going to war:

even if you come out on ‘top’,

The ghosts you met will follow you,

The haunting will never stop.

But there’s something nice meeting a veteran,

Literal or not,

He’ll support you unconditionally,

your back he’s always got

And so I bought him flowers,

A simple thought that crossed my mind,

I’ll never forget that smile

When he revealed it was the first time,

That someone gave him something

for his service, not anyone,

The thing is, he’s got no idea

how much for me he’s done.

LOVE, DEAR ABBY

I will never beg you to stay

When you and I know you’ll just walk away

I hope that years from now I run into you on the street.

I hope you remember everything the way that I do.

I hope it stings at you the way it stung me.

I hope regret haunts you like an ache.

I hope running into me makes you happy whilst simultaneously hurting you.

I hope you register that I’m doing well without you.

Because I know that when you look in the mirror, it’s my face that you see.

And you will never be able to run away from your inward reflection.

…

twelfth

fourteenth ❄️

eighteenth

LOVE, DEAR ABBY

If no one’s told you yet:

Hi

NOVOCAINE.

I know attention’s what she craves,

while you reminisce of now lost days.

Lying in the bed you made,

This cautionary tale of novocaine.

“Listed on my Wiki page,

There’s a list of whom I’d been betrayed,

Alongside accomplishments and accolades,

that you missed while you were away.

“That same list tells of who I’d claimed,

As lessons I’ll take to the grave,

Those lessons struck me, taught me, trained,

You made me “love” tasting blood and pain.

“We both knew you’d never change,

And thus so, you set the stage,

to view the downfall of your name.

A name I now push from my brain.

“I chewed and bit my lips by day,

To stop from talking, as to not say

How much I hate you, but I refrained,

Because my mother taught me ‘Grace’.

“But I grew tired of this relay.

Why should I be the one to maintain

This toxic joke you call a family?

I grew up, while you grew afraid.

“That’s what kept me alive and sane,

Yet what keeps you quiet and ashamed.

The fact that your love slowly drained,

And it’s all on you, your choice, your mistake.

“All your promises were fake,

Waited for that phone that never rang,

The gardens of my mind I raked,

My own sanctuary, I’d make.

“The anger and fury that burns away,

your scorching guilt will never fade.

And at night you’ll lie awake.

while your dreams die, your ‘heart’ slowly breaks.

“You search for forgiveness everyday,

Desperately reaching out in vain,

hoping to grasp a new blank slate,

but you and I know that’s insane.

“You look in the mirror but see my face,

It’s too late now, you can’t escape.

A hollow shell is what remains,

The colors gone, it’s all plain.

“Behind that ‘bride’ of yours who’s vain,

Who’s really more your ball and chain,

She only said yes to have a way,

To meet those bills she couldn’t pay.

“So let this be your take-away,

Two have always played this game.

You’ve learned victory you can’t claim,

And I now walk a different place,

“I see your life stuck on this page,

From which you can’t turn, it’s in flames.

It makes me relieved to finally say,

‘From you, I’m the one who got away’.”

LOVE, DEAR ABBY

Closing the chapter with someone doesn’t make you cruel; it simply means they aren’t a part of the next one.