vomit on the side of the road.

I never felt close enough bracketed in your arms

So I worked myself a place under your tongue and between your ribs

Crawled inside of you.

Hands in your hair, fingernails gripping into flesh –

Choked by the need to live between your bed sheets

Suffocated by you.

I swallowed down the words that made their way up my throat like sick,

I let blood and tears and sweat come out of me –

(I fucking hate running but I ran every day for four months to get my feelings for you out of me through my pores)

But the only thing that made sense for us was language (sometimes).

Each day I'd sit in a classroom and make up stories and all of them were about you.

(I kept a dictionary next to my bed for a year to find new ways to explain love and heartbreak.)

We wrote letters and tried to make metaphors but nothing was enough

Nothing was good enough for you

Everything was too much for you so I tried to make a home for you

Between pages and between classes and night shifts and in the flowers I sent you.

And then

You ran.

I ran until I vomited on the side of the road once.

I don't think there's a word in the dictionary for that.

It's been over a year and finally –

Finally I'm okay not following you.