“I knew you were no good for me because when you stood in front of her, your eyes swallowed her smile until you wore one too. I pictured her choking to death on her long hair before I realised she wasn’t the reason I was upset.

A few facts about me since the advent of you: I don’t put peanut butter on both sides of the sandwich anymore and I never leave milk out on the counter because you’re right, it’s gross. I sleep with a cat and a dog in my bed partly because they’re warm and partly because when I wake up screaming, they have no words to ask me what I’ve been seeing. I run every day now but I still have not managed to escape you. Whenever I breathe too deeply I can taste the tobacco of your kisses at the bottom of my lungs. Last night I set seven alarms and slept through all of them on purpose. I am no longer held together by your stitches and it feels like all the limbs that you had your hands on are slowly drifting like continents away from each other so one day I will be lost in space, all in pieces like broken pottery.

I miss you more than I can say.”