in case you (and you know who you are) pick up this book one day, here is my advice, my message, my last words, to you:

put it back down. do not read past these three pages. you are only going to hate yourself if you do, and despite the seething rage directed at you throughout this entire thing, i do not want to put you through that.

i have spent enough time telling you what you did wrong.

you have suffered enough at my hands.

this is not for you. this is not your book.

reliving our story while writing about the scars it left riddled across my skin was not the healthiest thing for me to do.

and you reliving our story while reading about what you did to me is not the healthiest thing for you to do, either.

these poems are not for you to read.

this is not my final attempt to get you back for what happened to us. this is not an act of war, nor an act of hatred.

i'm too tired to make an enemy out of you, now.

there was a time, when i first began to rehash us and dissect our relationship, where this was meant to reach you, and it was meant to hurt.

this book was originally an atomic bomb i was planning on dropping on your life.

but it wouldn't end up making me feel any better.

it wouldn't help end this.

if i can be honest, i cling.

i cling to things that give me something to write about.

it took me nearly a year to get over my first boyfriend, and we barely dated for three months.

but the poetry, it was so good. the feeling of writing, of that catharsis, it was like a drug to me.

i wrote for hours at a time, dozens of poems a day, and i clung to every memory of him like my life depended on it.

i panicked, when i finally couldn't stop myself from moving on any longer, and the poems stopped flooding out.

i didn't know what to do.

on the one hand, i was relieved to no longer have an aching hole in my chest.

but on the other hand, i wanted to be able to write like that again.

that endless flood of words, i needed it like i needed water.

eventually, i learned to write even without a barrage of pain pounding down on me.

i learned how to create whole poems out of a glance, entire series out of a conversation.

i learned to write for just for the hell of it, not because i was bleeding.

and i had a handle on it. that tug to the darker side of poetry.

i avoided people who i knew would hurt me because i knew that it wasn't worth it.

but then, you.

i think that's part of the reason i wanted to write this book and mail it to your front door.

because you are the reason why i can suddenly write ten poems a day, without even having to think.

you broke my trained and tethered restraint. and dammit, i have been working so hard to get it back again, but i can't until i'm ready to, and i'm not ready to until i've written all there is to write.

like i said, i cling.

and the first time you did something shitty, i sank my claws into you because deep down, i knew you'd give me something good.

even though the biggest parts of me stayed because i loved you, because i would have died for you, because i could not live in a world without you, there was a tiny part of me staying because of what was to come.

it stayed for the poetry.

it stayed for this.

but even if you are the push behind so many of these words, this is not your book, do you hear me? this is not about you anymore. this is no longer about me clinging to terrible situations because they make me write pretty shit. this is not about hurting you back by way of some very complicated revenge scheme.

i got better.

i found love again.

i am not hurting anymore.

so this is not for you.

this is for me.

-c.h.