Astra

I was always imagining a love,

A love,

it felt like it was just beyond my grasp,

never in this layer of the universe.

Lord knows this one was filled with pain,

Filled to the brim,

So full there was no room for much else…

Except the knowing

Of who she was to you…

she always was everything that I will never be…

—Astra

Heart break is like gripping onto

the car seat,

back to being terrified of everything,

Even the harmless things—

All of the pain

You thought you forgot

Comes so much closer

Than you ever remembered it being—

You can’t tell if it happened yesterday

Or three years prior.

you are,

Once again,

waking up as a child

in the middle of the night

with nightmares,

calling your mom—

—Astra

I begged them to call you,

My manic wish.

Nothing else felt as real as the thought

Of you existing.

They told me there wasn’t a chance

I would see you—

those words were a stab wound…

white walls surrounded me

In the emergency room:

It’s a broken heart,

they said,

everyone goes through it sometimes.

This hardly registers;

The pain has consumed me,

Convinced me…

That I am the only one

Who suffers tonight—

Roses and cigarettes:

My feet up on the dashboard;

You take care of me,

But not exactly.

I just do most of it myself

Though somehow,

With you by my side,

It feels a little easier.

I don’t want to be soft

Anymore;

Feelings are messy,

But I guess you think

it’s okay If I cry.

And if I don’t think too hard

Sometimes,

A shred of my fantasy’s are allowed

To stay alive,

I think about back when

I thought I wouldn’t survive,

Some days I still don’t feel real

Without you,

So did I really make it out alive?

Some days I still can’t decide

But I do know one thing to be true;

It is a half existence without you—

—Astra

After you,

I could not be in the same room as love.

How could I enter

Knowing inside was every part of you

I never got to know.

—

I shut off the movies

And silenced the songs,

To exist there killed me,

I used to own this body,

But It feels as if you built every wall.

Your handiwork

So intimate I cannot be separate

From it at any point in time.

Sometimes when the songs come

On the radio

I sit in stunned silence feeling like

Someone understands—

—Astra

The cold hearted

never die,

They divide for eternity,

Founding themselves on glass

Already shattered so they can

Predict the ending each time,

Surrounding themselves with the nothingness

that is comparable

only to the insulation of

Pain itself—

The electron is neither here nor there;

It exists in both planes of knowledge

Until observed.

Misery is ever amorphous

Homing in all cells,

Threading itself through two holes

In a skull,

And settling itself

Down the spine.

If only it knew it’s own end

But it fights harder than any

To live on—

—Astra

Here’s a portrait of me in

The afterlife:

Long after you left

And all my bones rotted

Beneath the hot pavement of summer,

A hundred years beyond the days

We spent together.

Who would’ve thought fate would

Turn everything so cruel,

That flesh would be all that we’d

Know together,

And burdens all we learned how to

Carry.

Somewhere in the stars

God wrote this place,

And christened it with consciousness,

A brutality

Which would never cease—

—Astra

The observer

And the endurer

Play games in my head.

Dancing around,

As if they were made for one another.

The endurer felt the arrow

Enter my chest and pierce

The muscle

Which would never be repaired—

It felt the end,

And the observer knew,

Yet the observer said,

how pretty is the wood

Carved right from the tree.

Look at its craftsmanship,

He took his time with me—

And the endurer

Laughed in pain—

My blood spilled on the living room

Carpet,

Nothing was right that night,

The whole world was blaring loud,

The endurer curled me up in a ball,

My hands held

the only body I would

Ever have,

And I wept.

What else could be done—-

—Astra

I’m a kid again,

Doing everything without you

Remembering grief as

My eldest friend.

Things you’ll never understand,

Like the way I love you.

How the pit in my stomach falls,

Every time I know you don’t want me.

How everything is tinted

Just a little more lonely

In this world without you.

I guess it’s true,

If you held me I wouldn’t be me.

I’d be yours.

Throat so hollow and dry,

Air rakes against my esophagus.

You and I are one,

In the pain you gave me.

No quicker draw to romance

Than a perilous fall,

That may end in a safe place—

Astra—

Brain cells dripping in dopamine,

Love drove me to the edge

And dumped me along

The river bed.

Time elapses like an illness;

Somehow a supposed savior.

I could not exist if it

Weren’t for you,

I swear to God.

Emotions fade faster

Than flames eating up

The last of the year.

Death is always coming,

But who knows

If it is near.

Black charade characters

Along the boulevard

Show their faces

As if they were made of

Cellular light.

Don’t let them in again;

We were doing so well,

In the dusty corners of eyelids,

Closing for the last time.

I hope in some other place

You keep me;

—Astra

Thank you for everything

All the things you taught me,

You’ll never understand how much I needed them.

The pain,

I didn’t deserve it but it made me so soft

I couldn’t breathe;

Didn’t even have the bones to make up

My rib cage.

I may never have the courage

To be that soft again;

And I can’t believe this all happened in another life,

Somehow it felt like it was right before my eyes.

But if you were the one

You’d never leave me so broken

And I wouldn’t have this kind of strength,

there is something beautiful about that.

You might think so

Anyways—

—Astra

If this is the end,

Then at least hold my hand when I go.

Sing me a lullaby:

You said,

I never was soft like

You and I resented that;

It felt like an insult,

Your touch like sandpaper

This time on my veins,

Bloodthirsty;

How many times

Will I let you hurt me?

My head under water,

Eyes swollen and tired,

You always were doing just

Fine treading water;

And I should’ve seen it coming,

When I felt every razor blade,

And called it love.

Broke my ribs on your words,

Am I fragile enough?

Drunken on selflessness,

Thinking I could give you that much.

Choked down your words,

Mouth tasting of blood.

Forgave you one last time

To feel trusting you

like the last sucker punch.

What is pain,

If not the will behind love—

—Astra

I love you

and that crushes me;

There is no place worth standing my ground on,

When it comes to you.

I would sooner crumble to pieces,

Than be able to carry the weight

Of this loneliness.

I’m learning that things fall harder

When you’re afraid of letting go;

It’s as if life’s been keeping a score

On the borrowed time.

The day you left,

is the day I died.

—-Astra

I planted flowers in the holes you left,

But they all grew up to be dead,

I won’t bother with digging up the flower beds,

I’d rather rot from the inside out,

Than go through a love like that again,

In the quiet alcove where my skeletons hide

I’m reminded of the

certainty of pain in life,

Dirty fingernails

push me up against the wall;

They don’t hold me hostage

But grief is a chokehold,

You leaving is the hands,

You knowing my heart would need incubation

in this place with no sunlight

Is the rest of the air leaving my wind pipe,

I don’t fight back,

But I make a pact to myself

That I will clean up every last bloodstain that’s left

every last bruise will be covered,

every fracture nailed back into the bone

But I may never have the courage to leave the safety of this pain—

—Astra

It’s different when you live in my head,

And when there’s nobody but me in my bed

Sometimes you visit me

In my nightmares;

When it comes to losing you

I still get so scared,

I compare everything to you;

I wrote letters that you would

Misplace,

And have better things to do

Than read anyways.

It doesn’t make sense in my head,

But you make my chest feel

like it did when I was a kid.

If I only live once I’m glad I got to

Spend some time with you—

—Astra

The season of gore

Wouldn’t be complete without

A heart ravaged by

The chaos of love,

Beaten and bloody is innocence

In your company,

Hard as it is to comprehend,

Grief has no anesthetic,

And no certain end,

The places you touched

Will always hurt—

—Astra

I keep everything I know of you,

I take it everywhere I go,

You left coffee stains on

My car dashboard:

Spilled coffee from the day

You said I’d always

Care too much

And that you’d never care enough.

I’ve had so much time

But I haven’t cleaned them,

I get chest pains thinking

How little I’d have of you,

If I don’t leave them.

Maybe a part of me still

Hopes you’ll be back to see them.

I’m sure by now you know,

How hard it’s been to let you go.

Still you never worried

You never called,

I guess I didn’t matter

At all.

I know I said talking the last time

would be my closure,

But there’s no such thing as closure.

So I use the heartbreak you left me,

To console me,

Because grief is company for the lonely,

There’s space to think about why I get so angry,

Time to obsess over why you

Couldn’t find the time to see me,

You see,

The truth is I still need you.

You said I’d be alright

But I’m too scared to believe you.

heartbreak is not like the movies,

The ones where they move on in 2 weeks,

It hurts how much I still see you in me;

I wish that I could be what you need

I wish you knew how to listen to me

Maybe one day I’ll understand

Why the mediocrity alternates

With the suffering,

And why I don’t have you,

Just the stains of your coffee—