I Miss You

By Fiona Kezia Winston

Do you think of me when your skies turn the colour of pink sunset lilles too?

Do you think of how intensely I loved and how intensely I grieved for everything that I couldn’t hold inside my goddamn hands?

Do you close your eyes and when your world turns black for a second, do you wish you could’ve done things differently too?

Do you flinch when someone touches you in a crowd because everyplace you touched is now singed like sin?

Do you see us in all the war torn countries, torn apart, snatched empty, wrenched open, bled dry?

Do you wish you could shout into stuffed pillows when you call it a night?

Do you look at the stars and think of all the nights we spent stargazing instead of studying?

Do you wish you were on the other side of my pen that bleeds pain and poetry and both in equal parts, sometimes?

Do you die a little everyday when you see pieces of me scattered unsinkable in your morning caffeine?

Do you cry everytime you look at the moon because the Moon’s the only thing that looks at you and me both holed in our rooms, crying when nobody’s looking?

Do you hold all your pain sealed inside your ribcage and watch it become smaller everyday and still hurt you a little more when you think you’re stronger this time?

Do you whisper my name to the skies in hopes of the scattered syllables finding their way back to me?

Do you breathe now like all the weight of the world is not on your shoulders anymore?

Do you erase my name from your speed dial to only punch my number over again and delete it because this battle’s all in your head?

Do you kill yourself a little with all the unsaid goodbyes?

Do the last kisses haunt you as much as they haunt me too?

Do you check everyday to see how much of my smell your shirts still hold?

Do you let go of love like you let in love in the first place, arms wide open, heart full of everything beautiful?

Do you say your goodbyes like you say your helloes?

Do you wish we could’ve should’ve would’ve done a thousand splendid things?

Do you live like you never loved and lost at all?

Do you miss me or do you miss the idea of everything I was in your head?

I miss you too.

But I miss me, more.

By Fiona Kezia Winston