a monster of a poem

your name is scrawled onto the walls of my heart
carved into my ugly peeling wallpaper, bled through the white plastered
on top of the childish crayon drawings you replaced, of things, people
i don’t want to remember or i can’t remember because the only remnant
of regrets are the crude renditions of when others rent my walls asunder.
the white is also the glue holding my little house of a heart together,
my house with shuttered windows and a cold breath blowing through
the cracks as you trail your footprints through each room, and don’t say
you don’t envy the front door for being open, inviting, an exit because
i know you shiver in my presence and i can’t help it because i’ve only kept
my heart vacant for you. no one else can live inside me like you do, or did,
alive and changed but still changing temperature, temperament. my god
my big empty heart felt so so small without you, beating twice as fast to
feel alive when other ghosts filled the time on my clock, but none of them
could hold the weight of my walls together; instead their presence burnt,
a frozen fire. the marks aren’t visible but they’re there under the white tears
of the wallpaper fluttering. with you here, the walls are expanding, beating the
same way they did before when you first moved into my heart, and yet
those insistent knocks from the past were anxiety-ridden, like the sound of
a nail beating a death sentence into the coffin that collapsed when you left.
oh, when you left, i tried putting your name back together, then i tore the
floorboards up again to find any trace of your glass eye watching me still.
i couldn’t rebuild myself without seeing you somewhere on me, around me;
your laughter echoes in the dust bunny corners, your voice under the bed
where i slept with your nickname for me curled around the grip of my hand.
still, i tried to build around you, chose new wallpaper, anything to paint over
the red you left in my eyes, anger and water leaks. when you walked through
my door again, the hinges were old and rusted and screamed to be shut again
because there was one before you that got too close, only to slam the door
a little too hard when he left, and i had to make sure i wouldn’t collapse again,
not until you see the new decorations and colors, thermostat and wounded
cracks patched up again with mismatched wallpaper. maybe you were always
meant to be here. maybe my house of a heart is just a shrine meant for you.
should you decide the house is too cold, too much work to renovate, that i’ll
never be to your liking, i’m glad you’ve stayed for the time you did. your name
never left me. it’ll never leave me. i hope you know there’s always room for you here.