the ones who leave

We cherish the ones who leave--beds, apartments, fingerprints on skin, scars on hearts. The ones who leave by choice and not by death, the ones who continue to exist in someone else’s life, just not yours. The ones we wonder about when we’re alone. The ones we can’t leave behind. We hold them the closest, in clenched fists, as if there’s any holding on to vapor.

We make room for them in our hearts as if they deserve anything more than a move to the trash heap of our inbox, an unfriend, unfollow, unsubscribe from their bullshit.

I’ve carried him, the abandoner, The One Who Left, for seven years. I revisit him in dreams just to be left again when I wake. Over. And over. For seven years. Every line I write leads back to him, a path followed until it becomes a rut and even now I dig myself deeper.

If I can’t rid myself of him, maybe I can settle for relocation. From my heart to my appendix. Part of me, but wholly unnecessary. Like I was to him, am to him, will always be to him. Removable.