I felt you in my legs before I ever met you
You came into my city and knocked me off my feet the minute I saw you sitting in that booth. I pretended not to care and blew you off but you came back with promises to unbreak my heart and do it right this time. You said you were the real thing. You convinced me you were mine, and I told you I was all yours but you took my heart and blended it up and swallowed it with all of my trust and love and vulnerability and spit it out into Lake Michigan. I don't know how to get it back this time. You were not supposed to be that guy. My mother tells me to keep my head up, don't let him breed cynicism in my guts because at least he's here and still alive. Distraction is the secret password and it's all I can do to keep myself from purging my anxiety into overcrowded bars. I laid out on my back for you and instead of reciprocation you took every inch of optimism left in my body and choked it down because you wanted to "make everyone happy." I've been swallowing shots to cheers of "fuck him" over and over trying to heal my hurt with alcohol but at the end of the night I'm still turning over thoughts of the one I'm supposed to be forgetting. I'm living on a diet of whiskey and pills since you destroyed the part of me that I worked so hard to get back after all those years. You were deceptive for months and stole my ability to trust people and still somehow you've managed to make me the bad guy. I can't sit alone or I'm left to wallow in my thin skin counting my ribs. This summer I will live in rivers and let them take away every inch of us left inside of me while washing my hands and lips of you. And you can show your face in my city if you want to, but you should know that it will never be yours again.