Slow Death by Sacramento Heartbreak

I assumed that Sacramento killed from

the inside out, but stumbling across

the unspoken words might have just

afflicted me with a crueller

disease

We never discussed the tender

things, the lilt of your voice or the

way that your cerulean 

irises were streaked with green 

We never talked about your father, who would 

rather paint you in shades of crimson and violet

than admit his own alcoholism.

I assumed that heartbreak slowly mutilated

the outstretched limbs that still reached for

a withering reality

I will never forget my first love in

sacramento, although there’s a reason it’s

labelled as a cesspool of hell

We never discussed how you wanted to

 get out, drive until your car ran out of gas 

We never mentioned the silence, the pauses 

in conversations where entire dissertations 

could have detailed the rising in my lungs

I thought you were a sickness

I assumed that venom killed from

the inside out, but turning away from the

raised voices and picket fences that

enveloped me into suffocation

was the thing that killed me

Stepping into Sacramento might have

killed me

But leaving might have

saved my life.