When you go

When you decide to leave,

can you leave the door behind you slightly ajar?

When you find that my love is not what you want anymore,

can you toss a blanket over my shoulders so as to not feel the draft of your passing?

Can you take your jacket from the hook and your picture from my wallet?

I'd just appreciate it, if when you do decide to leave,

you take all of you away.

But if you also could,

do you mind leaving the love you gave me behind?

I'd like to simply know that it was there before you create more to give to someone else.

That I was worth that second glance. 

And though I do appreciate your honesty,

please leave silently,

your departure will say all that you would ever need to.

I do not wish to know why at the moment, 

for my fragile state may dissipate even farther.

And when you clean yourself from my eyes,

please think of me as little as you can.

Do not send any additional emotion my way, 

because I will feel so much more than you will know.

While I have been left so many times before, 

know that yours will take on a meaning of its own.

For a short time, 

it will be because I wasn't good enough and I am simply unloveable.
But eventually, I will know that it was because

we were just not right for each other at all to begin with. 

How long it will take me to get to that conclusion however, is unknown.

I'm not sure how much ache I will have left in me when I see you again,

but I can only hope that it's small enough to

leave me with the ability to look you in the eyes with no tears in mine. 

Sounds hard. 

In fact it sounds downright brutal.

But this is the pain that I need to endure to make myself stronger.

This is the disease that I need to conquer before it consumes me fully.

There will be words that I never say to you

that I will mean just as forcefully as if I had. 

That is simply the person that I am at this moment.

I am not aware of the changes that I will undergo in your absence, 

though I can tell that they will be great indeed. 

I hope they are so great that I will not recognize you in any way.

I wish for such the tsunami to overtake me so that I will forget you nearly entirely.

I say nearly because I do not wish to forget the pain you caused that I overcame.

I have not overcome it yet, I am but wallowing in the trench.

This tumbleweed in the desert will not flow past you the same way, sir. 

And you will wish that I had. 

These changes cannot happen yet.

All I can ask is that as you leave,

please do so softly as my edges will become, 

and silently as I will be

as the shock of your absence will leave me.

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace.