Why Did You Use My I Love You's As Battle Cries

tonight is that purple room. i look at the shadow of my bedside and pretend they are you. i reach my palms over to hold them until the entirety of my hand is engulfed within them. i guess what I've been trying to say is you swallow me whole. your voice on the other line is sewn into my atrium. that July night when you whispered of the happiness i gave you now breaks like empty bottles leaving glass shards sticking out of your throat and entering my bloodstream. i keep finding our failures discovering our fault lines and pulling at the broken wires. i cant stop touching your place in my mind like a scab that will never be given the chance to heal. i keep staring at the love you wrenched out of me. the way you left my heart hanging out of my chest like decaying fruit. because i don't want to forget you. i don't want this to become a "last August." i know you are not all awful. i know we all struggle. for the same acceptance. and sometimes we lack the self confidence to unleash the constellations in our chests. so here i am with this stupid pen and this stupid poem. always loving you. always bringing you back from the dead. always thinking of last august when you burned me like carbon but touched me like emeralds. always remembering somewhere. somewhere in June when your hands and the air felt warm against my cold skin and i found a home in your twisted spine. but the honest truth is i don't remember how your skin feels anymore. the pain in my chest is all i know how to hold onto.