That’s what I wrote the night I found out what you did.
The day you took
four and a half years of my trust and my patience,
soiled it
with alochol-soaked lies, laid her down on it and
fucked her where you held me
just the night before.
Held me as silent tears became sobs rolling off my nose and chin
into that same sheet you laid her down on.
You fucked her in my tears.
Looking back I realize those tears weren’t for you at all.
Because if those tears
were for you, I’d still be clinging to a
rub-my-back, i-believe-in-you, long-walks-in-the-middle-of-the-night, you-roll-your-eyes-but-i-still-keep-trying
photograph,
dirty and fuzzy around the edges from clammy hands and
crying, “Four and a half years??”
No.
Those tears were for the girl
I lost when I met you.
For the girl who let you play with her self-esteem as violently as
little boys are allowed to
play with toy guns and swords while
little girls practice sabotage of their own potential.
Let you toss her self-esteem aside
once you were bored, while she dutifully cradled yours the way she always learned.
Those tears were for the girl
who gave you 1,000 chances too many and
still blamed herself for breaking your heart.
Now is where I would have said thank you for sparing me
any more bullshit
but I’m tired
of letting my success and my mother’s and my sister’s
be brushed off the page like eraser dust after trying to rub your name out of my memory.
So I’ll thank myself.
Thank me for finding that girl
and reminding her what real love is supposed to look like.
And if you’re curious to know,
you can find it in the photographs
you left on your wall, in the eyes
of the woman who no longer asks herself to be less.
#poetry #spilled ink
