I want to cry you out of me,
I want the tears to cleanse me of you.
I want each tear to take the pieces of you –
the pieces you left in me, the pieces I took from you –
and rid me of them.
Roll them out of my eyes,
down my cheeks;
let them fall, drop, trickle, plunge off me, to the ground. Be wiped away, evaporate.
Purify me.
I want to shed the layers
of you
I feel on my skin.
I want to push them down my stomach, pull them down my legs,
step out of them, put bare toes down on new ground.
I will wipe their remnants away, whatever it takes.
I want to expose new skin to the world,
skin that isn’t familiar with you.
I don’t want to show
the marks you’ve left,
the birth marks you know,
the spots that became a map for your hands.
I want new skin that isn’t
influenced by you, excited by you,
shaped by you, intrigued by you,
known by you.
I want to wring out my heart,
squeeze and twist it, force out all the
blood that knows the taste of you, blood that keeps getting pumped
throughout my body.
I want my heart to stop feeding my arms and legs and hips and mind with you,
to start beating with something pure, something clean, something naive.
I want to nourish my mind to be clear of you, clear from you;
create pathways that travel away from you.
I don’t want to walk around
with memories of you
layered on my skin,
in my heart, on my mind,
inside of me.
I want to cry you out of me.
And Yet…..