That Smile

After twelve months
of turbulence, and my stomach finally settling itself, you said
with a smile, “Funny how much things change in a year.”
To my utter horror and disappointment, I felt a sinking in my gut
A heartshaped paperweight cracked
neatly down the middle
making its home in my abdomen
It wasn’t that same shattering sensation. A slow process
like peeling fragmented shell from a hardboiled egg
A pain unlike the tearing of a muscle
fiber
by
fiber

Back then, all I could do
was writhe and sweat
and either stare at the ceiling or squeeze my eyes shut
and cry at the irony
of it all. With another person, my behavior
could have taken on a whole new meaning
What’s funny is where a desperate mind trapped
in the haze of heartbreak and insomnia will crawl to
What’s funny is that I dragged myself
through barbed wire called “memories” to escape
and spent hours with tweezers
pulling a voice, a touch
a look in the eyes, a handful of lies
out of my body and despite that,
occasionally I feel a twinge
There’s still shrapnel surfacing

What’s funny is that nausea, dread, and butterflies
all are feelings so deceptively similar that
it’s easy to get mixed up
Does love trigger the amygdala
and set a panic reaction in motion?
I laugh in spite
of myself
What’s funny is that I believed
true love never dies. An echo of a whisper
always remains, always shadows you
But if this is love, tell me,
what does loathing look like?
How about disdain or shame? At best,
my affection is calloused

A chuckle, a giggle, a whimper, a sob
What’s funny is that it’s not funny at all.