All I remember is the abrupt end...

All I remember is the abrupt end,
a butcher-knife amputation of my right hand
then the sparkling fade to blackness as I hemorrhaged you.
My last thought
was, “Good fucking riddance.”
My God agrees with me
and I hope he takes from you everything you love.
I hope your convict boyfriend stabs you through the kneecap
with a screwdriver
twists it
and doesn’t get cited to his parole officer.
I hope that, when you hear this, the flesh on your face crawls
until you want to peel it off like a potato skin,
clawing long, legato gashes down your cheeks.
What? Did you think I would chase you?
Or that you could drag me along
like a reluctant poodle in the park?
Was this a chess move or a dice-roll?
Or are you just fed up with me like I am with you?

I know that I’m damaged.
You don’t have to rub it in my face.
Because even if I bathed in acceptance
of my regrets and mistakes
and you scrubbed me with a Brillo pad full of reminders
there would still be eleven steps before I’m fixed
and I’m not even willing to take the second one for you.

You want this
to weigh on me like Atlas holding up the skies
crushing my pride
to the resigned buzzing of a fly caught
in the swift plastic of a flyswatter,
its wings twitching ineffectual apologies aloud.
But pride
is far easier to maintain than intimacy.
Purposeful. Optimized.
This is a chess move, not a dice-roll.

You hacked with your pompous hedge-clippers
At the tethers that rope my inflated insecurities
to the ground,
keeping them from wafting away.
You cracked me in half like a coconut—
who I am and who I could be—
and refused to mix the milks.
We both chose ourselves over each other.
But I still miss you.

I just won’t follow you into the street, pleading.
You always wanted to know why I never
wrote a poem about you.
I know this isn’t exactly what you had in mind, but
I am admitting that you hurt me.
And you couldn’t hurt me if I didn’t care about you.
This is as vulnerable as I’m ever willing to get.
It’s a risk. A dice-roll.
I hope that, when you hear this, you’ll accept its value,
because nothing else is coming.
It’s your move.