The summer was salt and sandy toes and the way that raccoon almost attacked you on our way home. It was the vroom of the cars and the tick tock of time. You never looked at me when you cried but I was always there to catch your tears. Remember that one time you pushed me and I hit my head? You said the black and blue reminded you of your mother and her lilac eyes. We didn’t speak for a week.

Grip me tighter because my bones aren’t broken yet. Your love was poppy seeds on the bagel I toasted for you every morning. Did you ever even notice that I picked all of them off for you? One time I tore all my shirts. I ripped through the fabric and wanted you to fill the holes. Cold and black sunrises were all the morning after’s. Call me tomorrow? You never did.

Broken bed springs lined our walls and your sneakers hung from the trees. Go and get them down. But I was never tall enough and you never had a ladder. Your words spicy when they left your tongue but they tasted old when they reached me. You made me long for sweet.

You suffocated me with your sunken eyes. The time you smirked when my mother died but blamed it on the television. I wanted to learn how to carry myself the way you said you wished I would. When I asked for it, you tore the instruction manual to bits and made me pick each torn up piece. You know I love you baby girl. Was that love?

Letters don’t make words if you don’t say them out loud. Perfume drenched dresses to hide the shame. Remember when you put out your cigarette on my arm? You traced your failures on my body and shook me to try to erase them. Rosy pink skies were my saviors. You claimed you were my God.

Unfolded shirts and piles of underwear held up our home. Loud thumps in the middle of the night never seemed to faze you unless you knew I made them. Unfolded shirts stacked upon each other in the suitcase I stole for you last summer. Silently creeping away because I was tired of reminding you of your mother’s eyes. I’ll never love someone like I love you was left written on the walls in the blood of our past. I wonder if you realized I was gone.