I apologized for correcting you.
when you told me I was wrong.
I apologized for not listening to you,
when you would ask me to be quiet.

I painted my skin red with anguish that I could stand up to par with what you required.
Drowned my lungs in cheap toxins that left me sick the next morning.

Facing you.
I apologized for running my mouth, for telling you I loved you.
when you got tired of hearing it everyday.

I lathered my skin purple with your aggression that I could ever learn to obey.
Sinking my stomach in doctored ways that left me unconscious for hours and dead the next morning.

Facing you. Dead.

I didn’t have to,
because you finally felt sorry for burying me, way after I already passed.

-C.M. Aldecoa