I have existed in silence 
for an eternity,
a head full of thoughts
and lips sealed and locked 
with a key drowning in the depths 
of doubt and fear and 
all the monsters that kept me awake at night.

I should have screamed 
when you left
until my lungs burst and 
the air flew from my body,
just like everything else 
I thought I needed.

I should have told you 
that I was terrified
because you set my nerves on fire 
and my heart was so full of just you—
the feather curve of your lips, 
the veins of your hands,
the ladder of your spine—
that I could feel it ripping in the places
I had stitched together 
when my fingers were steady
and my head wasn’t an ocean
crashing and breaking against the shore.

I should have whispered 
that you had stopped waking up
from feeling like a chore,
that you were a hurricane that
shook my armor into skin
and my steel bones into porcelain.

But you see, there is 
a graveyard in my mouth
filled with words that 
have died on my lips.