I teeter at the edge of enraged insanity,
Stopping myself from taking one more step,
Cloaking myself in numbness,
Shielding myself from your betrayal,
From your disregard,
From your rotten love and hollow words.
I tell myself that I’ve known all along,
That I chose to tuck my doubts away,
Chose to love you through my questions
Chose to trust you even without your answers.
But did I?
I’m a fool whether I knew or whether I was caught off-guard,
I’m a fool for allowing your breath to mingle with mine
Even though I smelled your need to conquer me,
Smelled the others, the liquor, the sin.
Smelled your desperation to keep owning me.
Why did I stay?
Because I hoped.
And because my soul was a dark, gaping void,
Aching for a spark, a flame
And you came swooping in burning bright,
An inferno that hid deceit at its midst.
I was blinded,
Amazed at what came alive out of my coldness when you touched me,
Out of my loneliness when you whispered words that I longed to hear for oh so long.
You brought me to life, just to take it away.
You taught me to trust, just so you could betray.
You made me love just to leave me here,
Broken, ashamed and wondering what you felt like between their arms, their sheets,
What you felt when you kissed me after, tainting my soul with your mistakes.
Did you smell my scent as you kissed their necks?
Did you hear my voice when they cried out your name?
Did you hear my tears with every gasp from their lips?
You took my years, my dreams, my joy
What was it that I failed to give?
You took it all, why wasn’t that enough?
You vile, selfish, thirsty beast,
You drank my blood, feasted on my flesh and ripped out my soul
And made me believe that was love.
You took the canvas of my vulnerability and painted it in shades of red.
Your brushstrokes were so tender that I mistook them for passionate care,
But you were only meticulously drawing a target,
Marking me as your victim from the moment we met.
Did you laugh?
Did you laugh at how easy I was to fool?
Did it make you smile, my inability to believe you’d be so cruel?
When you told me you couldn’t live without me,
Were you thinking of what it felt like when your skin slid slicked against theirs?
Of when your heart beat faster against their chest before it stopped and then came back to life,
Your pulse synchronizing with their shallow breaths?
When you brushed my hair away from my eyes,
Did you hope I’d exist forever blind?
Did you pray I’d always be so easy to mold, to form forever into your fraud?
Did you feel like God?
In those moments I awoke and let my instincts prod my doubt
And you made me believe I was insane, a wreck, damaged
And hard to love?
When in the end it was me, on my knees, weak in the spirit
Begging for your forgiveness, for you to love me through my madness
For you to hold me as I felt deranged
And when I tied my intuition into knots so tight, that I could never reach it again?
Did it make you feel absolute?
Did it quicken your breath, dilate your pupils and rush your blood
When you realized my life had forced me to learn to give,
Boundless, needy, desperate,
And that I willingly took the scraps,
The scraps you threw on the ground,
Thankful, humbled, feeling my worth at my heels,
Believing all I deserved were the fading residues of your attention?
Did it not break your heart?
To watch me empty as you took and took,
To see me fade as you grew vibrant?
To watch me shrink as you loomed above me,
Holding what power I had left in your mighty palm,
Toying with it between your fingertips?
Was I made this weak?
Or did you make me this way?
Was my disposition created to crumble at your touch,
At your words, in your embrace?
And now, as I lie, curled up on the cold barren earth,
Your shadows surrounding me from every corner,
Your scent clinging to the edge of my memories,
My body awash in a slowly fading warmth from when you held me last,
My mind overcome with questions that claw away at my sanity,
Steadily breaking down barriers I’d fought to never breach,
Dark places I swore never to near,
A hopelessness so suffocating, I can barely will my lungs to breathe;
And I ask myself where,
Where the man I used to be has gone, he who was once high on the light of life?
I ask myself who,
Who will you share the secrets of your love with tonight?
I ask myself when,
When did my resolve begin to waver so frail?
I ask myself how,
How can you still look at me, look into me and tell me that’ I’m your life
While you savagely break every single vow?
And worst of all,
I ask myself why,
Why am I still achingly in love with you?
Why do I need you to hold me close, comfort me and tell me it will be okay,
When you were the one who used my affection like a weapon,
Tearing at my seams, unraveling my world, my mind, my soul,
Leaving me asking myself over and over and over again,
How could you do this to me, my love,
When you were the one who swore,
Years ago, in the dark summer night when we first met,
That you would be the one who would keep me safe?