wisdom starts to drown, this ship is going down (part XIV)

Didn't find another email/reply in chat, but...found a poem. So this is now where this series ends.

severance

great joy and great depression
interwoven, delicate, persistent
threads of connection binding
me to him. fragile as we go and
so easily broken.

but my heart is an echo chamber
and the only voice I can hear is mine
I walk the jagged pathways to
the place where you lived
and I am finding only dust and memories
tarnished moments I’m trying very hard
not to regret.

and I love you, but I cannot find you
I cannot stand in the empty chamber
you made your own. you said you would
always be there but
you have removed yourself from my view
no trace of your passing I can find and
no mention, no word.

the condensation of your breath
has evaporated so completely even
the glass is gone, so
what am I to do?

I say I choose my own path now
I say your vows broken mean
my obedience is no longer required
I say I have removed your bindings
though the day will come that I will weep again
at laying your collar--something I viewed
as a lifetime commitment--on the floor.

but this is my end
there are still questions, which
may not ever resolve, but
now I take my pain, I take
my confusion, my hurt and anger
the scars I yet bear and
the flame of my love

and I set them aside. love alone
cannot sustain the bound heart
so I take my heart back. by
sea and shore, by sky and stone, I take
myself back.

and if you still live, o my love
I free you also, with
all that can wish you well left in me
but I’m closing the door, o my love
and this time
I will not answer.
~11/29/2012

November, 2012. It's about the right time. And this may actually be the 'goodbye letter' I sent him. If not, I used words from this in it, because it--especially the last two stanzas--rings with a sense of familiarity that goes beyond the fact I wrote it.

So. That, I think, is truly that, for now.

(Except...no, there's still one last one to come.)