A Lover's Grip

I remember the way your arms wrapped around my body. First at my hips, then my rib cage, then around my shoulders cradling my neck. Weeks turned to months and your arms never left their place atop my shoulders. They stayed tangled around my neck in a messy embrace, but with each sunrise your grip got tighter. A seemingly unbreakable love to those around us, but really you were suffocating me. Tightening the choke hold that was once a lover's embrace and taking my breath away one final time.

-Megan Songer

Megan Had a Cigarette and Sucks at Relationships

I wrote your name on every cigarette hoping that as they burned, the memories we made would too. I'd sit there watching as the smoke seemed to turn invisible and I imagined you doing the same. I thought it was working too, until I realized that I was really inhaling you, breathing in every particle of your existence and giving you a home within my lungs as tar. You became the cancerous being I carry within me. I'd only given you a stronger grip on me, and now you can never be forgotten or removed.