193 MILES

I wake, head laying somewhere it doesn’t recognise,
(Thirty centimetres away from where I normally wake to see you)
And when I breath, something like a fractured rib burns my lungs
Turning each mouthful of oxygen into bile in my stomach
(It’s not the smell of you on my pillow, but the way it has already faded)
And when my mind takes note of my body, I become the blood around an open wound,
I become the space in between a broken bone.

My flesh is bruised by the absence of your flesh
(The ghost of your fingertips painted black against my cheek)
And when my eyes open I blink, blinded by the light,
My being scarred from my mind to my soles,
(The shapes that burn my retinas spell out the letters of your name)
And my lips, chapped and bleeding, are broken by the plague within my bones,
The empty space in my cells that wait for you to come home.​

Summer Walker