Sting
Amber Kreimendahl
I want the soft pedals that fall onto yr skin to cut you I want the warmth of the sun to blister over the parts of yr body that I used to touch so much, where my fingerprints are I want the security, the solace you feel when you know where to rest yr head at night leaving you. The sense of familiarity you took for granted to punish you this is not your Earth anymore
The cold swept in underneath the crack of the door first and then the entire door swung open, pouring in ice. You were alone in the room and barely made a sound, you were alone and you didn’t want anyone to know what was happening to you. The cold held on to you and shook your body, you wrapped a blanket around your skin and the cold filled your lungs. You were alone and you were scared. You wondered if another person would ever look at you the same way. You started a fire and dug a knife into the ceiling trying to burn along with the ashes, the room will catch fire and nobody will know what was happening to you. You were alone in the room and were holding your breath, the fire will lick your skin and burn off the layers that you hate. You want to fire to engulf you, you’ll rise with the smoke and you’ll feel familiar again. The cold wrapped itself around your body in attempt to protect you from the fire but you resisted it. You sat in the ashes with relief and hoped the knife would fall from the ceiling onto yourself and release the cold from your lungs. The fire burned away everything leaving nothing behind but you and the knife. You felt a tight pain in your body. You dug the knife into your chest and found nothing. There was no fire inside of you. There was no cold. You were alone and you didn’t want anything to know what was happening to you.
Here is where your words found me, and sliced through to my bone. Here is where I tried to keep my blood from hitting the pavement. I retrace my footsteps to remember where I’ve gone. Here is where I realized that the love that I once thought was mine was gone. I have ghosts up and down the east coast and everywhere else that you may have made me feel alone. I went to Chicago to look at the skyline, and to remember how badly I wanted the cold air that wrapped itself around me to be your body instead. I went to Boise where I had left my fear in the mountains and embraced the love you sent to me from thousands of miles away. I visited bus stations and state lines and felt the familiarity slip away from me. I traveled across the country and back just to find you. I talked to ghosts who said “I don’t know how I could have done this alone. How I could have done this without her.” The skin on my fingers feel too soft now to be my own and I can’t recognize this face when you aren’t touching it. I make small talk with the people that are in my life but I can’t hold conversations because I don’t know who I am if I’m not yours. Parts of me have evaporated away with the words you have said to me. In seven years, the cells in my body will have been entirely replaced with new ones and you will have not touched any of them. I will have hair on my head that your hands have never ran through and skin that your lips have never touched. I will have full conversations with people that I call friends and people that I know. I will put on clothes in the morning and not think about you when I see the parts of my body that you didn’t like. I will not live in spite of you anymore and I will stop looking for you everywhere that I go. My hands will not remember the way that I used to trace your spine and I will grow massive wings in place of the scars that you’ve left on me. I will feel at-home in a body that I have given to you and that you have rejected. I will fill a body, entirely, in a way that does not involve you.
MY HEART WILL HEAL MY HEART WILL HEAL MY HEART WILL HEAL MY HEART WILL HEAL MY HEART WILL HEAL MY HEART WILL HEAL MY HEART WILL HEAL MY HEART WILL HEAL MY HEART WILL HEAL MY HEART WILL HEAL MY HEART WILL HEAL AND SO WILL YOURS
I left behind the walls of the hospital and traded it in for empty promises and heartbreak. I wasn’t blinded by love, I was blinded by acceptance. I was absolutely vulnerable. Directionless and newly filled with chemicals that I thought could make me into the lover that you needed me to be. I was brand new and ready for the next big thing to happen and it just so happened to be you.
I want to believe there is a light inside of me that is so bright and powerful that you can feel it from states away. For a long time, I wanted you to feel the same sharp pain, and sting that you’ve left with me. I wanted you to break the way that I did. I want you to feel me getting better. I want nothing to do with your insides anymore unless it’s my raw, fearful hope that I am everything you said I was not, penetrating you through your bones and leaking into your subconscious. I want your confidence to shake. Lose sleep over this. I want the Earth to fall out from underneath your feet.
Credit to @nemanja_bogdanov for the art Credit to my heartbreak for the writing Š 2017