Everyone has a little baggage;
a suitcase or a purse that weighs so much more than it should.
With blisters on my hands, I surrender my passport – I won't
notice a change of scenery in the dark,
but every room feels a little different, and
my bones are itching to fly.

I'm used to leaving places, but leaving people is a different story.
I can't just leave you behind when I've put so much into you.
So here you are, my carry-on, my piece of home.
You're too big to fit under the seat in front of me, so
I make room. I stretch the silence, the empty space,
push other people away to make room for
my baggage.
It's not that I don't want to leave you by my nightstand –
the problem is that you've followed me all this way.

You're the skeleton in my closet who learned to walk,
grew veins and arteries twisting like winding scars,
sprouted flesh and life like wings and
every time you held my hand,
your blood filled in the gaps in my fingers, so now
every time I press my thumb to paper,
I see you in my fingerprint.
You've made yourself a part of my identity and now –

no.
I did that.
I let you grow like cancer with every moment I spent in the dark,
cloaked in panic attacks every night like a blanket,
and you were the heat that choked me beneath the covers.
I let you sink into my nerves every time I wasted my breath
mentioning you and my future
in the same sentence.
I won't blame myself.

I'm done with that.
But how can I blame you, when all you are
is a suitcase, a piece of luggage, a memory
that I carry with me as if I couldn't survive without you?
You never even knew what you did to me.
As far as you're concerned,

you're a victim too, and maybe
you have some baggage of your own.
Maybe there's a picture of me tucked away in your pocket,
and maybe it feels like it's made of stone.