Her letter is short, but the length of a sword doesn’t matter when it’s pinning me against the ground

Her words are hundreds of rounds of bullets, and they slice me apart like paper-cuts

I’m trying to block the words, but I can’t block the truth anymore than a flood

And the floodgates opened and her words spilled out

I’m drowning in their strength, but fighting is useless when I’m trapped by the ice in her eyes and the fire in her hands 

I plan to forget and move on, but no one forgets a bullet hole, and I’m still bleeding from the shots fired by her pen

She writes with ice, and ends with steel, and I’m frozen in the middle, trapped in a world of cold silence that refuses to let me free

Her letter ends up in my hands again, and I reread the words written by armies, and the sound of my tears matches my heartbeat

It doesn’t matter, she writes, because she thinks I’ve forgotten her

She thinks I’ve forgotten the nights in the woods, or the emptiness kept in a car as it lets out a passenger and keeps a prisoner

She thinks I’ve forgotten the times we held each other for hours

She knows I’ve put aside the fights and useless feuds that end in us feeling useless

She hopes I’ll write back, but my hand turns to stone and I sit and stare at the wall

I don’t even try to respond to the letters that never appear

I know it’s the weak way out- but it’s the most painless, and I’ve had all the pain I can take for a lifetime

I don’t even think I should have bothered to open the letter,

But it’s sitting in my hands and weighs a thousand pounds

And I can’t let go, just like I couldn’t let her go

But I did because she left me, and I can’t take another night of waiting beside the mailbox for mail that will never arrive

It feels like dying when the wind in the trees means more than the past,

And the miles between us mean nothing to believe in

I’m going to try to put her behind, the way an elephant never forgets, no matter how hard he tries

I plan to forget her letters, and stop reading the lines, but they’re more addicting than sin and I’m already in over my head, so I take a breath and read the letter again

I know I don’t belong in her letters, and they will never stop coming until the end of the world or her death

And at this point, I don’t know which I’d prefer

But I want to be with her, he says, and holds her close

She turns away, and then into, him, and he tries to vanish the memories in her arms

I’m doing the same, only I’m dying in the process

I’m thinking that I need a letter to drink, a Juliet way to die

But I’m no Romeo, and I stupidly stare at the wall and a blank page, thinking that excuses don’t matter when there’s no reason to be found

I’m trying to forget her, but the heart remembers