Unaddled

Having you was privilege.

Needing you was breathing.

Losing you was…

Having you was needing you was losing you was

Spinning the cylinder was

Open and taste…was

Chasing you was like playing

Russian roulette with a gun where

Someone had loaded the rest of the chambers when

I wasn’t looking; when

It came to be my turn to

Bite the bullet

I bit hard and it

Bit back harder, shattering my

Smitten smile into

Cavity-laden snowflakes so convincing,

The neighborhood children grabbed their

Snowsuits and toboggans for playtime in my wake.

Their parents blame me for

Leading their children astray

With false promises of recreation because

Today’s children may not be taken in by

Artificiality but they’re

Far too accepting of it.

And I’ve grown weary of gumming

Everything I put my mouth to so

I’m cutting new teeth on my only

Photo of you, gnawing at the edges until they’re

So tattered it seems as though

Someone has ripped you from reality;

The reality is my reality is altered

In your absence and

While my teeth have grown back in,

While I am able to chew and swallow again,

Things still don’t quite taste right.

And that gun is sitting on the nightstand,

Hammer cocked; and the fear that someone

Has loaded the rest of the chambers again is

Starting to wear off; it just looks

So damn appetizing.

But I’ve yet to determine if these

Pangs in my stomach are

truly of hunger or

just a fear of not finding

something of substance to

sate these primal tempests

in my gullet the way that

you did.

So I’ll continue my teething

Like privilege

Like breathing

Like nothing has changed

Like we’re both still the same

Like that gun isn’t taunting me

Like the chambers are empty

Like tomorrow will be different

Like Youth is asking its parents to show them what real is

Like real still is

Like real life tastes nothing of gunmetal

And I smile again

A big toothy grin

White as snowflakes

And you’re bitter as I walk away.