End

I'll collect my things

Sort through what we combined

I thought if we were more intertwined

It would be harder to leave

But it's just harder to pack

At least there's no puppy

No lease

No rings

Just ties that can easily be severed

With a sentence

A truck

A phone call

A plane ticket

And it will be like I was never here

I'll try to close the door softly

Bones

I wear it everyday

He asks me where it came from

I answer

I don't want there to be secrets between us

Not this time

"I miss her"

I tell him

"I know"

He says

"I never wrote poetry before her"

"Neither did I"

He replies

Be cool

As a rule
I keep my mouth shut
Don't seem
Too:
needy
jealous
concerned
conflicted
I want to make everyone happy
More than I want to make myself happy
I don't fear conflict
But I avoid it
After I've said what I'm feeling
(If I can even decide what I'm feeling long enough to verbalize it)
I can never take it back
And things will never be how they were before
So I hold it in
Until I can't hold any more

21%

21% of me stayed with you
That's the number I've chosen
Even when I was sure that I could survive without you
Even when I insisted we were over
21% of me was whispering I was wrong
I tried to give away the other 79%
And that worked for a while
But, one percent at a time, the 21% grew
And now it's 97%
3% is still cautious
Still afraid of getting hurt
But 97 is so much more than 79
And, slowly,
One-hundredth of a percent at a time
It's growing
Because not even fear can stop me from choosing you