i had to block your number

i had to block your number because the urge to text you wouldn't go away

but if you ask me how i feel about you, i would lie

"we were never that serious anyway"

while reading old text messages

while contemplating what went wrong

i had to block your number because i liked you all along

i had kind of a rude awakening about it

learned that i'm not very good at letting go

i had to block your number but your birthday, your favorite birthday cake i still know

i almost learned how to make it

considered how your family could have it too

i researched dietary restrictions, even though about me they probably never knew

i must have expressed them at some point, these emotions that most would find cute

but if i was a car ride karaoke

you always had your radio on mute

but i was younger then

so i believed love had a ceiling can't give it away too fast

at least that's how i was feeling

but then at the back of the stage somewhere behind the curtain

i wished i could go back in time

to prevent you from ever hurting

to be there in the worst moments

to prevent the downward spiral

it's no surprise really that even just the thought of you went viral

because to know you is to remember you

trust me the opposite i've tried

i told people how great you are, i really should have lied

because now it's all different

we're just a spark that burned out

now you're just something else that me and my therapist talk about

i look back at that time now, how i - how i could have felt that way

because i've always been so afraid of speaking

but about you i easily vocalized only the prettiest words i could say

and they all had your crooked smile

they all had your pretty voice

i immortalized your energy because you became my first choice

now i'm sitting on a sidewalk contemplating a call to make

today is your birthday

i accidentally bought your favorite cake

eventually i'll go inside

i'll cook a warm meal

and i'll throw my heart in a cell that nobody could ever again steal

until the cell has your number, and the phone returns to my hand

i had to block your number, because my heart, your absence

it still doesn't understand

CELIA