i think i did love you after all
even though others tried to convince me i didn’t and at long last i finally resigned myself to it placated the emptiness in my chest with that lie i think i did love you after all when i’m with you now although it’s all said and done it’s still hard for me to imagine being with anyone else i think i did love you after all it doesn’t hurt me to think of all the others nothing but past insignificances yet the vaguest flash of you and the emotional pain is insurmountable transferring to the physical i think i did love you after all i used to dream about having children with you even though that’s something i’ve never wanted with anyone i think i did love you after all when we speak i forget that i’m supposed to be forgetting you i think i did love you after all i can’t go a day without you crossing my mind i did love you, after all you love me like you don't
you hate me like you do you leave me like you will you stay like you won't yet i still belong to you three months.
that was your use-by date for me. i knew it would come eventually because it always does but i didn't expect it to come so soon so sudden see, this one is not like the one stamped on a milk carton you throw it out because it's sour and can make you ill but this one was just when you decided you no longer enjoyed me found that i'm not your favorite anything anymore i did not turn sour. or ruin and my use-by date for you never even crossed my mind i thought we had something real but i was just a new thing for you to try exciting and delectable at first but bland and insipid once the new wore off honestly
i never thought i'd live this long 20 has been the worst year of my life maybe 21 will be better you thought
i was worth knowing but you did that very thing-- know me truly deeply fully intimately-- and changed your mind decided i wasn't worthy of your attention wasn't worthy of your love but maybe you didn't know me like you thought you did maybe you don't know me at all i can't listen to my playlists anymore
the band camino plays and all i can think of is us together both sporadically and simultaneously belting out the same melody because it was our song the paper kites takes me back to coffee dates and intimate moments dermot kennedy flashes the images of our late-night drives and beach trips the brook and the bluff calls up endless times of sharing songs and playlists with one another once the sweetest of times turned salty and pain with each song we shared you've ruined music for me i thought
you were better but you're just like him sometimes i still get panic attacks when i think about you
dread fills my chest and angst overcomes me sometimes i still have nightmares about you your incandescent blue eyes burning a hole in my mind that remains even after i wake sometimes i still feel helpless when i see you like it used to be, trapped, a prisoner to your words and your hands sometimes i die a little when paintings of you flash through my mind haunting me with memories of what once was and no longer can be sometimes i wish i never met you but then sometimes i imagine your singing to help me fall asleep your smooth, familiar tone the only soothing defense when insomnia attacks sometimes i wear the shirt you left over here because it makes me feel closer to you each fiber ingrained with impressions of your cologne sometimes i listen to music that i know you like the melody bringing a sweetness with the essence of you sometimes i think about you and the butterflies come back filling up my insides and suffocating me sometimes i love you all over again sometimes i always knew
you'd throw me away it was just a matter of time they exclusively
pursue me until they find someone else i am never someone’s constant but i am always someone’s temporary today
i realized something as i watched you from across the room you've never seen me. i don't know why i ever thought you did i'm like the "to-do" list you put on your fridge you glance at it once but forget about it as time goes on just another complacent factor that is trivial to you because today in that room all i saw was you while all you saw was everyone else and it took me back to the mindset of the girl who once loved you so so much but now now it's as crystal clear to me as i am to you: you've never seen me and you never will i hate you.
that is a certainty but you don't know this. even though you treated me like shit you'd never find blame in yourself so i pretend i pretend we're friends i smile i bring up former conversations i laugh but i don't mean any of it you wrecked me and i hate you for it down the road
up the neighborhood through the cul-de-sac parking a few houses down so no one will hear i sneak up the drive and slip into your bedroom door where you're waiting for me i once believed this was acceptable that you cared about me but i'm coming to terms with your lack of respect a 20 year-old woman behaving like a high-schooler immature hiding from your parents as if we aren't two consenting adults shrouding myself with the hours of 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. keeping completely silent so they won't hear you hid me under the bed and that was the last straw if you want to be with me it'll have to be outside of your bedroom the cul-de-sac the neighborhood and before 10 p.m. if not, then we're done but maybe that's the way it's supposed to be i was an actress
for ten years people are always surprised when i say this but if only they know I act everyday of my life my mundane conversations and daily ventures a performance scripted and memorized in my mind words nuance movements all pre-planned so they won't know so they can't see how i really feel so they can't take advantage of my vulnerabilities so they can't hurt me like i've been in the past a role meant to be played by yours truly without an intermission without a curtain call so far removed from reality that i eventually become my auditioned character a sempiternal staging maybe
it would be better if i just stopped breathing because then at least i can't be an inconvenience to you anymore i can feel it
coming descending like a wet blanket stifling all fire all warmth nothing but sopping fabric drenching my hair my clothes inciting shivers burying my eyes and burning behind the lids covering nose and mouth until no air can circulate until it's easier to stop fighting until it's easier to simply die i used to be this girl
waiting for a boy to come rescue her expecting the discovery of a soulmate to fix me dreaming of a fairy-tale a prince and a magical life but the fantasy is over instead of being that girl i killed her leaving behind the corpse of my childhood wishfulness and becoming something new i'm not the damsel in the ivory tower pleading for a savior i'm the knight alongside you capable of liberating myself the damsel is dead let's fight for something else they commit "chivalrous" acts
open doors for you let you walk first pay for your coffee don't discuss taboo subjects in your presence and "defend your honor" working hard to be labeled a gentleman but simultaneously, they degrade talk over you as if you're non-existent assume you're inferior to a male counterpart inappropriately "compliment" you give you unwarranted advice and put you in a child-bearing box "let men be gentlemen. let them do what they're supposed to" they tell me but i won't stroke your ego i won't allow you to buy into the antiquated patriarchal chivalrous complex because being a gentleman is about respect and you have none for women |
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February 2022
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