chains & maps & the empty

that rattling's still shaking through my brain.

eight months & seven days later, & they announced his three year future. eight months & seven days of ache & death & birth & break, but relief is yet to set. eight months & seven days later & his days numbered haven't changed my life, or the pieces of it that remain. they didn't magic themselves into a newness or freeness, they're still jagged & fragmented & not what i ever wanted.

i think the worst part is that he's carved out his own safe in my memory hell & i think he's there to stay. worse, thinking that those three-hundred & sixty-five times three of his are terminal, & mine will continue to fall day out & in til my chest pumps its last. he's tattooed himself on my shoulder to stay, but i'll be wiped from the beginnings of a thought the day his jumpsuit & shackles are no longer his.

his chains don't mean what i thought they might; my world remains his rubble. i thought i'd be light but now i'm a shell of his destruction & the war's over & i'm still empty. it's like all those other things; when the ball drops & touring world-acclaimed ruins & all the supposed monuments that leave everything in its place when you'd hope for ground shatter & sky split.

the climax came & went, and here i stand...lost as ever. i thought my life was on hold til that day fell. i thought that i'd spring back into me when his future was set so that mine could regrow & bloom. but it's all the same & my voice is no longer needed & i don't know what that means.

how did i get here?