The Art of Unknowing

i had to learn to quit you cold turkey. you aren’t like nicotine where you wean yourself slowly.

you’re the bandaid ripped off quickly. take the pain in one large dose like a multivitamin. get it all over with with one giant gulp of water. or hard liquor. whichever you’ve been keeping in the clear plastic bottle beside your bed.

i took you all in at once, unhinged my big mouth’s jaw. like a shark starting feet first devoured you until your head was past my second set of teeth. you weren’t easy to consume but i choked you down. castor oil: convinced you’d be a remedy like some old wives tale. where was the good nanny and her spoonful of sugar?

you felt like a fire ant hive inside of my veins. always a flame i couldn’t put out. i mistook gasoline for h2o and inside me you grew like a tumor.

the radiation on the downswing. medically zapping away your reach. slowly diminishing as i pulled out my organs through my jaw to remove all the places you’d ever touched. farewell esophagus that housed the words timid, timorous me couldn’t hack up. see you later gallbladder and all the bile you cradled like a mother and a newborn baby when this new sort of anxiety was birthed from me. goodbye uterus that nestled these dreams of future generations to be cocooned in love that was actually a borrowed line from someone else’s book.

i had to quit you cold turkey because if i foolishly took another hit of you, you’d make it through to every moon surface of my brain. you’d come in like you’d made some new discovery on my dark side.

but now i am sober and i do not remember the appeal of searching for you in back alleys with my hands full of wads of cash looking for a cheap thrill to get me high on false preacher delivered compliments and kisses that tasted like arsenic and stale cigarettes.

remember that diner where we tipped all of the waitresses outrageous amounts because we came in at odd hours and they kept our glasses full and memorized our orders? you’d roll your eyes as i talked to them about their lives and you just worked your finger to scroll through pages of social media like it was the most exhilarating part of your day. and then when you did ask questions it was too personal and i always looked about nervously because you were embarrassing me.

in the universe where you successfully broke my heart and ruined me for anyone else, i would go back there and sit in our favorite booth. they’d fill my glass with soda and talk to me about polite things like weather and the news. but they’d never ask me why i still wore my wedding band and why i never finished my food.

i would drive to the places that felt familiar. where you proposed, and i would call your number just to hear your voice on the voicemail. speaking of those, i would save them all from you and replay them and tell myself that this was just a phase, a breathing space, a pause or an ellipsis.

i would dress myself in my wedding dress and get sloppy drunk and look at old photographs and cry to our song on repeat like it would transport me back to the times when i felt like you loved me. (though i know now that you tolerated me. i served a purpose by filling a void and you don’t grow weary of those you love. you wrap them up in blankets of gratitude and build them fortresses of authenticity and vulnerability.)

i would stalk your internet presence and use my sleuthing magic to dive deeply into the pages of any new women flirting in your comments. i would know if she liked jam or cream smear on her bagel. is it savory or sweet? does she drink whiskey neat? i would keep circling back to how i could chip away at the great divide erected between you and i. my tears would be the only thing keeping me afloat, buoyancy from salt water, no drowning.

but this isn’t that universe. instead, i don’t even return to the city. i don’t grieve the could have, should have been. instead i build rocket ships and take trips to heights you said i would never reach. most people find separation to be like cinderblock tied to your feet, sinking. but i have found it’s much more like wings.

the hum of the cicadas crawling in through my ear canals tunneling to my brain / the summer heat sticky, sweet / independence day to mark the dissension into captivity / you were a tornado inside of human flesh / destruction wrapped up in pock marked skin and messy hair / i stepped into your path of terror with a hero sized heart / hell bent on getting you past the pearly gates into heaven / it went a lot like this / beer after beer stacking into a tall pyramid of empty glass / the floor disappeared beneath my feet / but i never let go of my keys / movie marathons and nights when you were literally the monster beneath my bed / you were watching my every move if i rolled across the mattress your talons reached out to stop me / hourly check ins so you knew that i wasn’t doing anything nefarious though you’d go days without response / it wasn’t long before your fists found my flesh like a punching bag / it’s your fault i have to do this / an echo of your failure to control your rage / bruises in the shape of handprints across my body / lies i told grew like building blocks / one wrong move and the fallacy would come out from beneath me / i am fine i would say like i actually meant it / if you tell a lie enough do you cease to be a liar and become the delusional? / coat of armor against your viper venom words / no good when the corrosiveness starts to bore through / small words like cigarette burn holes in my flesh / you’re inside my thoughts like cockroaches / thriving in the darkness, scurrying without any fear / until the light peeks through and you are forced to retreat / further in and higher up / chew away at my brain stem like you’re the guest of honor at this funeral feast / centipedes in my chest cavity legs upon legs upon legs dragging across my anxiety filled lungs / you were carnivorous in your cannibalistic tendencies / i felt my skin scrape across your sharpened teeth / you removed my flesh from my skeleton / but it was just the one that had been shoved inside the closet /

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