Dear B,

For the first dozen years of my life

I relished in being heartbroken over love

I didn’t think I was capable of experiencing.

I practiced gracefully restraining sobs

so I could still look elegant and pityingly beautiful

no matter which “the one” was prancing away.

I prayed to god that when I finally did get my heart broken

it would be so devastatingly epic

that breathing becomes a conscious decision.

Did he know you were really just a failed dancer

that someone pitted so much

they asked if you could sing something nice?

Did he know that you never really made love

but fucked whoever would tell you, you were pretty

and buy you lunch?

I think if he did he would have stayed.

He wouldn’t have slapped you off that pedestal

when he found out

you had the hand-writing of a twelve year old boy

and you still drooled in your sleep.

How could you be so amazing,

but so disposable?

Dear Billie, do you wonder if he thinks of you

when he touches himself?

Do you wonder if he smiles when he comes

all alone with only a dirty t-shirt

to catch it in?

I bet he plays your records

when he folds his clean cotton clothes.

I bet he kisses things

too cold and stale to be memories of you.

I bet he has a fetish for that sort of a thing.

I bet there never was a he that broke you

though there is a he that broke me.

He told me you never really wrote those songs

and Billie Holiday is a made up name.