Unloving

Unloving you is like skydiving.
I am so scared to do it, yet I’m already so high up, needing to jump.

Unloving you is like trying a new lipstick.
I’m scared to do it because what if people laugh or think I look stupid.

Unloving you is hard.
Because you were so close.

But I know I need to do it,
For fear of unloving myself if I choose not to.

Unloving myself would be nothing new.
Forgetting myself to take care of you.

Unloving those around me.
When I keep them like shields.

Surrounding myself in their company,
Until I’m no longer haunted by the lonely.

Reminding me when they’re gone
That I did this to myself.

Unloving them for you
Was the worst decision I’ve made.

The lonely, now, it stays.
In every corner of my home

Lurking in the halls,
Crying out at night.

The lonely never leaves,
Not until I unlove me.

And when I do,
You will too.

Unlove me until I am broken
Into bits and pieces

Scattered like ashes
Left out for the birds.

The birds that will unlove me
After tasting how bitter I truly am,

How sweet I used to be.
Maybe if we relove her, they think

Picking me up in all of their beaks.
Taking me home, gluing me back together.

Fixing me up,
Allowing me to remember.

Remember why I cannot unlove myself.
Because when I do, the lonely creeps in.

Seeps in like smoke,
But i will not let that happen.

If the lonely comes knocking again,
I will close the door and throw the bolt.

I will tell it it’s not welcome in my home.
Not anymore.

Not since I started unloving you.

But reloving myself is like a jigsaw puzzle that’s missing a piece.
Frustrating, and time-consuming, and almost not worth the effort.

But at the end, even with that final piece missing,
I am still proud.

Proud of myself for getting that far, even if I am not yet complete.
So, I will search the house for that missing piece.

Day after day, I will look.
In every cabinet, under every couch.

Until I find that piece.
And by the time I find it, I will be tired of looking.

I will have torn apart the puzzle I worked too hard to build,
But I will build it again.

I will hold fast onto that piece,
Sure not to lose it again.

And I will rebuild.
Slowly, it will come to be

Something complete
Edge to edge,

Layer by layer,
Piece by piece.

It will become perfect.
The pieces may be old by then

The cardboard on the back tearing,
But they will still all work the same.

They will all show the same picture in the end.
Then one day, finally,

I will put in that final piece.
For a while I will be so proud of myself for finding it and fixing it.

But as time passes and I show it off,
People will begin to scrutinize and point out

That the final piece, is not for this puzzle.
It belongs to one of the many other unfinished puzzles

Scattered around the house,
And as I look around,

I realize that I have been looking too long and too hard for the piece to this puzzle.
And when I look in the simplest of places,

I find the last piece, was hidden in the box.
Tucked so neatly under the overlapping folds on the bottom.

And as I pull it out,
I come to notice how beautiful the incomplete puzzle is.

How akin it looks to me.
And I learn to love it, just as it is seen.