So Caught Up - Olive Murray

I've gotten so caught up in 

pretending I didn't miss you that

I think I forgot what it was like to 

see the look on your face when you're working.

Some part of me wanted to 

get out of that car and sweep you

up into arms that are not hers, hoping

beyond hoping that you of all people would

realize that I am falling apart. 

I am so caught up in falling apart that 

I forgot what it was like to be in love. 

I embraced the floral perfume of escapism

and forgot how the words I love you tasted inside

a wounded mouth. I forgot what it felt like

to live, to thrive, to keep my shell open

and tolerate the living. Sometimes, I even

forget what it feels like to fall apart. 

I got so caught up in loving you, 

I didn't even stop to consider what it would

be like to miss you. To not have you, 

to feel that aching chasm in my chest, 

like a wound, a deep dark mark, 

pressurized and suffocating me, because 

without you, who am I? In all my ruffled

plumage, with all these saintly hues, dressed

in colored bandages, waiting outside the 

tabernacle for a choir to escape, to ring their

hands in this forbidden atmosphere, and 

now I can't even remember how your voice 

sounds - the way you smell out of the 

shower - the color of your eyes when sunlight 

dances in them - but what I wish

what I am desperate to forget is the way 

I fell for you, like some tired escapade, like

foreboding atmosphere in a chilled climate, because

without you - without you - without you

I am empty. I've felt this way before, this sort

of desperate misery that clings like crushed styrofoam 

to every surface it can touch, and the breeding 

resentment that keeps me from falling completely

apart, from texting you, from digging through my 

phone books and calling you, from creating 

search engines devoted to your name that whisper

back at me he did not love you because I can't 

stand the pain of losing you twice; the metaphor here

is that when I am gone from this world, and you

are gone from this world, and she is gone from

this world, the suffering could, would, should end. 

But until the day I completely fall apart, hand

in hand with god and the devil, I will be so

caught up in missing you.