are the ones who quit smoking, but still always keep a pack of cigarettes close at hand. You can try to break a habit by squinching your eyes tight, or by trying to remove every trace of one thing from your life, but you haven’t fully cured the addiction, the idea goes, until you are willing to live your life with it.
So it was that I stopped myself halfway to your house the last time we broke up. I was carrying your heart in my hands, thinking I was not going to give it back so much as send it crashing through your window, when I decided instead to keep it, and turned around.
I wear it on a chain around my neck and never take it off, not to shower or sleep. All night I feel it beating next to mine, but morning eventually arrives. I spend each day wondering when someone will notice your heart and compliment the way we’re still not together.