Something I Haven't Said

The journey through this breakup

hasn't been all self-love, empowerment,

and poetic strength despite the bleeding.

There was also a lot of deeply human worry.

This is a personal truth I haven’t shared.

'Sometimes I Worried'

Sometimes I worried that he hated me—

that he seethed when he heard my name,

and wished he could erase me completely.

I feared running into him at the grocery store,

or catching his eyes through a windshield,

the air between us heavy with the stones of yesterday.

Sometimes I worried I was overreacting—

that what felt like my emotional Everest

was only a bump in the road to him.

That I was a needy woman

he was forever relieved to be rid of.

That what was sacred to me

was meaningless to him.

That I mistook intensity for meaning,

and was foolish for still feeling anything at all.

I worried he was happier without me.

I worried he had forgotten about me.

Because the deepest parts of me

hoped that he hadn’t.

And I knew—after everything that happened,

I shouldn’t have still felt that way.

But I was, after all,

afflicted with the human condition.

And I still am.