My throat has bled for eight straight Januarys,

Starting out as a cry,

Asking God why I must now know the pain of letting someone go,

Only to come to the bitter realization that they were never meant to be mine.

When he said forever,

My heart danced with the bars of my ribcage

And found freedom in his sentiment

But was still a prisoner,

Ignoring the shackles for a ring that melted in the kerosene cocktail of the wheelbarrow that was the final resting place for all our love’s labors.

I burned bridges

Trying to chase the same spark in men with the same eyes that glowed gold in the sun

As if I am a bee to honey.

Moving on has been just as sticky.

Complex as the web of lies I spun,

Telling myself that he was the bad guy

And I am better off without him.

The truth is,

I am poisonous.

And he was right to run at the first sign of trouble.

I find it funny—

All those years ago,

I swore my name would still float around his head,

Haunting his dreams,

Taunting him with visions of what could have been.

But it is, I, who calls for him when my tears fall like a fresh blanket of snow,

Regret, like frostbite, eating away at my limbs

Until I am a blob of misguided good intentions.

Like the quote says,

The road to hell is paved with them.

From my understanding,

Hell is not hot.

It’s a cold and vast wasteland,

Tormented by sins of the flesh

And blasphemy of the spirit.

I saved all my praises

And sang for a phantom lover,

Who left me with remnants of the first frost.

Even tucked away at night,

Him sleeping beside me,

Warmth went unreciprocated.

And, now, he is dead and gone.

The only way for me to close this chapter

Is to jump into arctic waters

And blow out the flame of the candle I was holding to his memory.

And I pray that in the morning, the icicles formed around my heart will melt into the oceans I prophesied.