Following Brake Lights

A breakup in haiku

Last year I challenged myself to write a haiku a day for a couple of months. I am not a trained haikuist by any means, but I do love and appreciate the creativity and succinctness that the traditional syllable structure produces. The following is a poem created from a selection of those haiku, arranged to tell the story of a love affair: from infatuation, to distance, to breakup, to healing. When I read these haiku, I remember what I was feeling when I wrote them. I hope maybe they make you feel something too.

You’re never too much. 
Please, my love, take up more space.
Shine like the North Star.
 


My rough calloused hands,
dragoncrabs of human flesh,
reach for your glass cheek.



You sing every word;
I bounce, I sway, I forget
I don’t know this song.



I miss your face and
the glorious rest of you.
I miss me with you. 



I dreamed you were lost.
I found you, tried to save you,
and crushed you instead.



One more lonely room.
Four walls and the sound of you
not saying my name.



I wait on your word.
I pause my life, sit, and count
red cars, watch leaves move.



I want to help you.
I want to say the right thing.
I still get it wrong. 



The tofu crumbles,
a facsimile of my
soft expectations. 



“It’s been a long day,”
I say, just like every day.
These days “long” means “bad.”



Made for consumption, 
I waste my life trying to 
make my flesh taste good.



“Hope springs eternal,”
I say, slipping a hair tie
on my sapphic wrist.



Insides like eggshells,
I am a deep breath away 
from cracking open.



Silence in the trees:
every bird is listening.
Something is coming.



New day, new worry.
As soon as the dust settles,
more dust clouds appear.



Winter brings relapse.
I chase after dopamine
down familiar roads.



The ceiling fan spins
and I picture being chopped
to chum in my bed. 



I need a reframe 
like I need holes in my head:
two holes, for breathing. 



How am I so calm?
That’s easy. This isn’t calm.
It’s rigor mortis.



I’ve spent so much time
smoothing sharps and hiding flaws,
begging to be loved.



Something’s been broken.
I see you and suddenly
your name tastes different.



My brain is sticky
and maybe my heart is, too.
I scrub at traces.



The North Star is gone.
Under a dark city sky,
I follow brake lights.



My highest and best
says to trust my wisdom and
drink more Ovaltine. 



I saw you today
in the face of a stranger.
You’ve changed—or I have. 



The month I went mad,
I paced a groove in my brain.
I’m patching it flat.

Thank you for reading! I am so happy that you’re here.