Honeybee

by Trista Mateer

Walking away from you feels like not taking care of myself.

And I know—I know I have a heart like a wild thing

How You Left There was very little poetry involved.

I’d rather think of this as a confession: you are still the first person I want to share new things with.

Every part of my life has pieces of you in it but this one.

I am the bad thing. (I was not always the bad thing. Sometimes it was you. Sometimes it was just the two of us together.)

It is as hard to be the one who goes as it is to be the one who stays.

It is okay to leave. It is okay to feel smothered by the weight of a life you didn’t want or a relationship that doesn’t taste the way you thought it would. It does not make you hard or disagreeable or unreasonable.

After it was over, had been over for months, I told a friend that if you ever called, I would come running. And he said to me: well, I guess it isn’t over then.

And he leans over and says to me, I’ve been reading your poems. You’re proper heartbroken, aren’t you?

I’ve gotten so good about not flinching at the sound of your name that people don’t know I’d still throw myself mouth-open into the ocean for the chance to drown somewhere you might see it.

I just want to leave your name on a page somewhere and never need to come back to it.

YOU CAN LOVE AND LOVE AND LOVE AND YOU STILL WON’T BELONG TO ANYONE AND NO ONE WILL BELONG TO YOU. IN THE END WE WON’T EVEN HAVE THE PAIN OF IT.

sometimes I do wake up with a pit in my stomach that goes by your name.

I will try to explain that even when we didn’t appreciate each other anymore, you still felt like my other half. Sometimes you still feel like my other half.

I Still Forget We’re Not Even Friends I still wake up with things to tell you. One day, I won’t. I will learn placid acceptance. I will stop panicking when I can’t perfectly remember the pitch of your voice or the curve of your jawline. The smell of cinnamon won’t make me sad anymore. At this point it’s not about finding someone to replace you. I have spread my love all over the place. It’s about trying to sleep knowing I live in a world that has your hands in it.

This Is What The Poems Are For: telling other people the things I can no longer tell you

Look, I’m not saying I’m still in love with you or anything. Things can be important even though they’re not important in the same way anymore. You still occupy space inside of me somewhere.

I HOPE YOU NEVER THINK ABOUT ME HERE’S TO YOU AND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE I WANT YOU TO HAVE EVERYTHING, ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING