Only Half

Half a pill waits for me. I stare at it for a while. 57 is all that's left of the identification code. The ragged edge where I broke it. Took the other half a while ago but I can't feel it anymore. Half doesn't last like it used to. I've been here before; staring at the half of a pill. I know its voice. The way it sounds in my head, my chest, my legs. I've been here before at the end of a bottle wondering how 160 half-a-pills go so fast. The first few--twenty, maybe--slow and steady. Only when it hurts. Promising myself this time will be different. Promising myself I will ignore the voice that starts with a whisper I can barely hear. But the whisper becomes a shout and soon I can feel my arms twitch, just a little at first. That voice whispers "it's just a half a pill". Half. Not whole. That would be too much.  One would lead to two then five and more and thy would be addiction. 

This is not addiction. 

It's just a half a pill. 

A Taste (cnf)

She's come and gone a thousand times. In like a lovers whisper. Gone again like a tornado had passed through the place, but that's what always sucked me in. Knowing the wind behind that whisper.

I stared down into those confused, beautiful eyes that once filled me with such excitement and hope, and said goodbye. I didn't want to. I don't like leaving. Losing. Departures that are chosen; especially the ones I have to choose. But sometimes that's all that's left. 

She said she didn't understand, which made it all make sense. She said it wasn't about me; I knew as much. I could read her like I read myself. I closed my eyes and slipped myself into that beautiful, chaotic mind of hers on a wisp of cherry blossom and basked for a moment--one last moment--in the glow that she always became. 

When I opened my eyes, and looked at her again, hers were closed. I don't know if she saw what I was doing in there. Rummaging in some memories, finding my little space there. I left a little ivory box on a table in a room in her world and maybe she would find it some day when she thought of me. Maybe she would open it. Maybe she would just tuck it away and never want the truth. 

But before she opened her eyes again, I was gone. The scent of me was all I left behind; sweet jasmine and honeysuckle. 

It was freedom she needed. And freedom I gave willingly. I may never see her again, and I have to be okay with that. 

I feel no anger. 

I feel peace.