Sometimes I Wish I Didn’t Write.

Because all I write is you.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t write.

Because words are painful. Because they can contain so much, you see. Like tiny particles of pain on a page. Little lines of type that can destroy you if you breathe them all in.

I once read that if you want to be a writer, you have write about all the things you’d rather just forget.

All the things you don’t want to remember.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t write.

Because remembering is painful. Because memories can contain so much, you see. Memories of you. Memories of you and me. We can try to forget all we want, but sometimes, our bodies just remember. Even if we don’t want to. Even if we think we’ve moved on. Our bodies remember.

I know my body remembers you.

Every cell. Every cell of me is like a universe of memory, an ocean of questions, of longing, of dreaming the dream that was you, that still is you. Every molecule of my being, every atom of my existence, every quark and anti-quark and matter and anti-matter that exists within my galaxy, remembers you.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t write.

Because I’d rather just forget you.

Instead, I have to remember. Instead, I have to dig. Dig down into the damp, sweet earth that is so fertile with the essence of you. I have to dig deep mines, tear a torrent of holes into the ground, drill a thousand winding tunnels miles and miles into my soul for every millisecond I ever spent with you. Every nanosecond.

Somehow every nanosecond held an eternity, when it was spent with you.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t write.

Because I’m not trying to mine copper, or silver, or gold. I’m not looking for diamonds.

I’m looking for blood, baby.

I’m looking for, Where does it hurt? I’m looking for, Where does it ache?

But I’m not looking for bruises I can press. I’m not looking to salt wounds still steaming wide open. Those are all so easy to see, easy to find.

No, I’m looking for,

Where are the clots of blood?

In my heart. In my brain. Tiny clumps of bloody memories suspended in my veins.

I have to let out the blood. I have to make myself bleed.

If I don’t, I know this:

I will die.

I have to write you out of my veins.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t write.

Because you tore down the walls of my every cell to let yourself in. And now they cannot contain you. Now I am cut open, broken, and I cannot hold you in. You are pouring out of me, spilling out of every pore in words, in tears, in every wretched exhale. I’m spilling out blood. I’m spitting out blood.

I can still taste you there. With every drop that bubbles up in my mouth.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t write.

Because they can split sentences and atoms, but they can’t figure out how to extract your memory from the marrow of my bones. They can split all my sentences and atoms open but they won’t be able to find you. They will never find you. Because nobody else can see you there but me.

Because super fucking symmetry.

Truth be told, I can’t find you either. I feel you there. You’re everywhere. But I don’t know exactly where you are. I don’t know how to tell us apart. I don’t know how to split our words, our atoms, our worlds, apart.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t write.

Because everything I write is you. Because I can’t seem to write a single word that doesn’t have you in it. Because every sentence I scrawl out of my skin belongs to you.

Because I still belong to you.

And no matter how much I write, still, still, still—

I just can’t seem to forget you.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t write.

Because.

I wish I could just keep on loving you.

But I can’t.

I can’t.

I wish I didn’t write, baby.

Except writing—

Writing is all I have left of you.

God, I wish I didn’t write.

Because now writing—

Writing is all I ever do.

I wish I didn’t write, baby.

I wish so bad I could just keep on loving you.

I wish I didn’t write, baby.

But I can’t keep on loving you.

And so writing, baby—

Writing—

Writing—

Writing.

Writing is all I can do.