This is How I Die: Collected Poems

by Kat Savage

I’m the antagonist in my own story, scoffing the plot & singing off-key. Sometimes I kill off the hero just to keep it interesting.

And that was when I realized we are all narcissists trying desperately to forget this long enough to fall in love with each other.

And we have the audacity to be wounded over the loss of something we never really had.

The first “I love you” will taste like hope. The last “I love you” will taste like a lie.

if you go nowhere for too long, you will be going nowhere forever,

last year when you told me you didn’t think you were the marrying type, didn’t think you were the commitment type. What you meant was you weren’t the committing-to-me type. I get it now.

I find it difficult to write about the things that make me happy.

if I write about it, I will ruin it.

I think I will find love one day. I think it will scare the shit out of me.

I don’t know how to let go of who you

and I don’t blame them for wanting to leave. Everything leaves. Even parts of yourself.

And I, I am just your friend.

Alone is just another personality disorder and self-harm doesn’t always make you bleed.

Remember when I talked about narcissism?

You’re the only man it still hurts to write about.

Even when I talk to the people I love the most, I feel disconnected.

You are the imperial garden of bad decisions and here I sit, visiting again.

Let’s pretend for a moment that we’ve known each other longer than just a few nights.

I crave you the way the insignificant flame of a candle craves oxygen at the onset of darkness.

I was lucky enough to have you in my life for as long as I did. At least, I desperately wanted to believe that.

the hurt was familiar and in so many ways, it was safe.

So go. Find someone who makes you want to stay.

You asked me if I ever wrote about you and it killed me that I couldn’t say no.

The best thing I ever did was stop begging you to stay when all you wanted to do was go.

I was only ever meant to be the past.

I was already just a memory to you.

I don’t miss you like I used to. My mind isn’t constantly filled with thoughts of you and I don’t keep wishing you were mine anymore.

You liked me for a little bit. Or, at least I like to think you did.

you make broken look so damn good.

Tell me a lie, just once. Tell me you could see us together.

You cannot unmeet him, but you can unknow him. This is not getting over him. This is just what self-preservation looks like.

Tomorrow I will not love him.