How to get over someone who has taught themself to fly

I am fully aware of the grammatical

in-correctness, the same in

correctness that gathers in the

alleyway outside your old

apartment, that tells me I should

have stayed,

but I didn't want this to be

about you.

I wanted,

for once in my goddamn life,

for this poem, out of all

the other shrunken poems

out of which I left you

bulging,

for this poem

to be bigger than you, to

swallow

you

whole .

I sewed my eyes shut.

I cut my arms off at the shoulders

so they could not reach for you.

I chopped my hair

off up to my chin hoping that

when it grows back it will not

realize it is nothing but

dead skin.

I lost the photograph of your fingers

playing that coffee shop piano.

I spent three nights on the floor

of my bathroom but that's all

I would give it.

I wandered into the wrong bed

once

twice

three times

before I finally chose

mine.

I have never felt so hungry in all my life,

but you are not nutrients

you are not necessary

you do not sustain life

I was on fire and you poured water

on the concrete

all around me.

So I let myself burn.