I thought death would be the only thing to take you from me, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

by surprise,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or creeping slowly, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With long grey fingers and nails the color of tar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You tore yourself from me, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the heat of summer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a month before fireworks and <\/p>\n\n\n\n

happily ever after<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fairy lights, a brick path, layers of tulle, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

burnt to a crisp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Navy blue and blush pink, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

turned black, turned red,

It’s the end.

Trembling hands, sleepless nights,

The phantom of your touch,

Your voice in my ear

The reflection of your face on my laptop

is gone.

The rhythm of your drums,

Of your hands on my back,

Red pews, hands clasped in prayer,

He’s gone.

A promise like crumpled paper,

the forked tongue of a serpent,

A delicate flower planted in sand,

could never bloom.

We never grew

You’re gone.

Long nights spent arguing, early mornings at church,

turned to walks through the woods

Birch and pine and babbling brooks,

Words, like an embrace, hidden in the pages

of my favorite books

The flowers you gave me,

Burned,

Memories we shared,

burned.

Forged, powerful –

I move, up ladders, up mountains

I touch the limitless sky and

Welcome the cold air on my cheeks.

Thousands of words, dozens of pages,

Hundreds of miles,

Tassel and cheers,

red and blue and gold,

No expectations, no judgment,

You’re gone.

My smile is weightless.

You’re gone. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought death would be the only thing to take you from me, by surprise, Or creeping slowly, With long grey fingers and nails the color of tar. But no, You tore yourself from me, in the heat of summer a month before fireworks and happily ever after Fairy lights, a brick path, layers of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[178,69,177,176,180],"class_list":["post-1038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-originalworks","tag-breakup","tag-originalwork","tag-poem","tag-poetry","tag-sadpoetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/magnoliareads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/pexels-photo-949587.jpeg?fit=1880%2C1253&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1038"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1042,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions\/1042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}