A very long time ago I took an empty, red wine bottle and swallowed it whole.

I swallowed it and grew around it like vines on an abandoned building, I grew around it the way you grow around your first heartbreak; desperately, messy, and empty.

About three years ago, the wine bottle cracked for the first time, the sound of the shard of glass that might as well have folded into itself, left me completely and utterly breathless.

The kind of breathless that leaves you grabbing at the nearest thing possible before your knees give out. The kind of breathless that makes you splay your fingers across your chest to double check that your heart is still beating.The kind of breathless that makes the time on my old yellow watch stop.

The feeling was so jarring, such irreparable damage to my most prized possession. I spent about way too many months shoving my fingers down my throat trying to patch up the quarter sized crack, never able to successfully recreate the pieces you took with you.

About 3 years ago, you tried to scratch your initials into my wine bottle, but your hesitation made your hands uneasy. Your love stuttered and got nervous and you cracked my bottle.

You only came back to cut your fingers on the mess you made of me, as if your paper cuts were anything more than a reminder of your own doing. As if the boxing match that took place in my chest wasn't enough.

I always came back with a little more blood on my shirt, with a little more limp in my stride and a little less skin on my teeth. And I guess your condolences don't extend past the length of your mirror or your hair, or the space between your lips, that inevitably seem stained red.