You can't break up with a soul mate [a love story in poetic verse]

116 | lies keep me begging for the truth

I'm home all day
painting
creating
reinventing photos
making them into art
dissecting my life
being a petal on a flower

this past month
I had 9 commissions
money is rolling in
my account has so many new followers
I stopped looking
my website has all the information
I am drowning in emails.
I am so busy
I don't want to think about Jared
yet somehow I still do.

David helps me out
answers back some emails for me.

Jared has been quiet
he no longer likes my poems
stopped reading me
no longer comments

maybe he is over me now
maybe I was replaced
quicker than a fox
I keep wondering how
how he does it
how he can be so clever.

My phone is turned off all the time
cigarette break now
phone break
first thing I see is Jared's name

fuck

Jared Piccione has paid you $1.00 via PayPal.

I felt a numbness enter my body
tingling sensation
of loss of control
of some kind of tilt
to my world
it was not glee
or freedom
it was as if a cage
shut me up
locked me inside it

the onset of another panic attack
I breathed in and out
closed my eyes

what the fuck
he paid me?
for what?
this was nuts

I logged into my account
I saw his name and photo
my heart beating quicker
than my thoughts

he had donated a dollar to my art store

I had three options
refund
ignore
reach out to ask him why

but why or how
is not the issue
plus i did not have his number anymore

it's undermining
manipulative
unexplainable
strange
violating my boundaries
why pay me

it's above all

insulting—

I ignored
paced
smoked

it made me sad all day
that he would do something
so invasive
so personal

it revealed to me
more and more
layers of himself
I never saw before

his  decision was impulsive
meant to hurt me
well bravo to him
he accomplished that

it feels as if all he wants to do
is kill my soul
slowly
ever so roughly
not gently anymore
his softness had disappeared

I blocked his contact name
from PayPal
how unromantic
how detrimental
to my state of mind

tactics to lure me back
shock me
make me think of him

I kept wondering
is this the same person
who said to me

You're the love of my life

and more lies

do lies keep me
begging for the truth

or
wanting more
I smoked three cigarettes in a row
and by five o'clock
had finished half a bottle of wine

I took out a canvas
played some Johnny Cash
and painted abstract lines
imagining Jared and me
being truthful
one line at a time.