He got down on one knee

While you were dancing on the dock

You told me all about it the next morning

As we were wrapped in your fuzzy sloth blanket

Like the warm folds could block out the rest of the world

It was just me and you

Maybe for the last time

When he first started coming here

I hated him

The first time he drove you to a school dance

I got his license plate

Just in case

The first time he kissed you

I couldn’t stop screaming

Your heart was so full

Meanwhile someone had pulled the plug on mine

He was taking you from me

Pulling you away like how water rushes down a drain

Swirling in bubbly ecstasy

How can one person be so happy

While her other half, her missing piece, is drowning?

But the longer it went on

This agony

The more I realized

The picture this puzzle was creating

Didn’t have me standing by your side

Like I always thought

It was him

It was all him

You’re hardly ever home now

Missing Christmas

Missing my birthday

And even when you’re here

You’re not really here

Eyes locked on a plastic screen

Words scrolling up and down

Your fingers madly tapping at the keys

I’d never known jealousy

Envy

Unadulterated hate 

Before now

But how it fueled me

It burned the water from my lungs

Suddenly I could breathe again

But it wasn’t clean air

It was sulfur 

Noxious fumes that twisted my mind into a grotesque place even I was scared to venture into

Solar flares of anger

Blazed across my vision

Every time I saw him

Blinding me in streaks of lava-red

The flames burst from my hands

Unable to be contained any longer

Burning me as I tried to burn him

I hated myself for hating so much

Days smoked into months

Still I clung to you

But the fire was eating me up inside

Scorching hungrily

At every last bit of me

Charring all that was left

And I realize that you weren’t the cold relief I so desperately craved

You were the kindling

And the spark was my own selfishness

I thought I would lose you forever

If I loosened my hold

But if you’re going to swim

You have to let go of the shallows

I was drowning us both

My anger weighing me down

Weighing you down 

With guilt

Like cannonballs tethered to our feet

My fingers released your wrist

The spark died and the kindling was saved from turning to ash

Now we could both unlock the chains

That had been keeping us in this purgatory

Of hot and cold

For so long

He got down on one knee

And for the first time

I was okay with him and you