and we were lovers now we can’t be friends fascination ends here we go again

this atrocious girl watching subtitled french films and sipping peppermint tea
munching toast with slabs of mozzarella
and popping fat, red grapes into her pink mouth
draped in a gray shawl and combing the landscape with her sooty eyelashes
as she coaxes content purring from a cat
her soft cold hands such a nice contrast on its dark fur
this is a portrait of my life today
it’s exactly who I wanted to be
today
but it’s tiring to try and be anything but what you are
I can barely tolerate it any longer
I’m a lover and I always have been and I had a lover or at least,
the sheer possibility was enough to sustain each faithful heartbeat
we’d talk under covers or I’d have my head in his lap
my hands would be up his shirt because yes, they really are quite cold
always
and it was such a nice contrast
that sharp pang of ice
against such, well,
there isn’t another word for it,
human warmth
and it’s been so long it’s been a whole leap year
since we left each other in the snow like starving animals
I would have let you eat me if it meant we could have stayed together
but you said there were only gray days ahead
and there were new places you wanted to put parts of your body into or around
and conflict was necessary to keep interest from waning;
I should have cried more and cooked less
I should have screamed and never sang
I should have been withholding of my love
slapped your hands away
recoiled from your touch
I should have closed my body and opened old wounds of yours so I could fuck them instead
but I could never do any of those things
how could I?
I loved you
how could I when I loved you and I tried so hard because I wanted to
and you said I wasn’t supposed to try
I was supposed to make you want to try
I remember how my face felt when it fell 55 gorgeous stories
my pupils dilated into camera obscura pinholes
but
what was that last feeling I felt for you?
pity? horror? betrayal?
or really it felt as if suddenly a plug was pulled
and anything that belonged to you inside of me was drained
I can’t even remember what it was or why I called you
back when I called you something
that meant ‘mine’
I fled from you that day without taking a step
I fled from you and your sinister idea that thought to love someone was to make them feel like you would never love them unless they did everything in their power to destroy themselves for you
how could you think that?

and just who the hell did you think I was if you thought I could do that to you