How To Unlove Someone Or Something

First, you split the skin—  

peel back the nights they whispered *always*  

like a vow, not a lie.  

Scrape the marrow from *I need you*,  

salt the wound with every *sorry*  

that arrived too late to matter.  

Next, break the ribs.  

(You’ll need the space.)  

Their name is a shard lodged there—  

dig it out with silence,  

with the weight of mornings  

where the bed is just a bed again.  

Then, the heart:  

not a valentine, but a fist  

of muscle and ruin.  

Wring it until it forgets  

the exact pitch of their laughter,  

until their touch is just a rumor  

your skin stops waiting for.  

Last—the hardest cut—  

let time do its butchery.  

One day, you’ll wake  

and the mirror won’t flinch.  

Your hands won’t shake.  

The ghost of them?  

Just smoke.  

Just air.