There’s a pain in my chest, right beneath my ribs, right where you used to live. You left in June and I spent the month trying to find something to fill your absence. Vices, depravities, perversions.

This is your fault.

My undoing was born by your hands. Your fingers tugged the thread loose, severing the stitch in a place only you had come to know. You’d used my body as your own, scraped the vigor from my bones, left me desolated on my kitchen floor.

There was nothing left of me. You’d taken everything, I’d given you everything.

This is my fault.

To love me was to be me, to become me, to strip me of life and revitalize your youth. Take my knowledge and gather new wit, work my limbs to bear a new weight, take my joy to feel as your own.

Leave me empty, leave me waiting.