I hope you feel bad when you go to sleep
I hope you think of me
Of what I can do
Of what I achieved without you
That I don’t need you
But you need me
When you didn’t want me
Didn’t care enough
Nothing I ever did was good enough
For you
To be a good parent
To check up on me
At the very least
Now I’m more grown-up than I’ve ever been
I had to be strong even though I didn’t want to
Even though I was scared too
He was evil and I thought you were his victim
I thought you needed me to be strong and save you
Like I always had to do before
no
You had your chance and you ruined it
You chose him over me
I don’t think of you
I don’t love you
I don’t love you
I don’t love you
Even though I do
I don’t want to
I hate you
And everything you’ve done to me
All the bad things outweigh the good
Nothing will ever be the same as you
We’ll never have sleepovers in your room
We’ll never have another tortilla fight
We’ll never bond over the cuteness of kitty’s little trot and bushy twitching tail
We’ll never get to sit in the early morning talking about work on the weekends
I’ll never run outside to your car to greet you in the morning
I’ll never see you again
I’ll never see you the same

He made the mistake of dancing in my storm
When nothing good comes out of this
Tears rain down
And I can’t control it
I’m too much for everybody
It hurt when he left
But he did it
for his own safety
I am too much for a world that is too little
When the story ends
You start fire to my forest
While my tears pour to put it out

I was bad
I didn’t listen
He was evil
I didn’t speak up
I stood there
For what seemed like hours
For hours
I waited
Outside of my body
Not the same person was left there
A girl trying her hardest not to cry
A girl fake smiling to get him to leave
A girl trying her best to survive
I can still see that girl in my mind
I pray for that girl
I did all the wrong things
I got caught
I got in trouble
I had to pay the consequences
Even though what I did wasn’t his business
Even though it really wasn’t that bad
But he said it was
He said this was the punishment to my crime
Fixing the fences
And because I was so good and didn’t talk back
He’ll let me inside his house
For a glass of water
Then shower and change my clothes
To give him a back rub
To try on his daughter's clothes in front of him to take home
Did I do wrong?
When all I did was stand there?
When I said “it’s okay” when he said “sorry”
Is it my fault that I didn’t say no?
I was stuck there
I felt like I couldn’t move
All I had to do for focus on surviving this moment
He told me I was lying
When I wasn’t
All of this happened
And I can see it in my mind so clearly
I can see everything
I relive it every night
I see it during the day
When I space off
I can see his face in the distance
I can see him behind closed eyes
I’m scared in public places
I’m scared everywhere
Because of what I’ve been through

I used to dream of my own funeral
Every night
I used to wish for the release of darkness
The relief of pain gone and bright tomorrows
In the skies
That they call heaven
Or hell
Or nothing
Whatever they call the place that your pain doesn’t follow your every move
Where your tears don’t cloud your eyes
When you’re safe
And you don’t have to worry about anyone hurting you
Or someone breaking your already damaged heart
You want what you don’t have
What you think you can’t have
All you want is just for everything to stop
For you to stop thinking about yesterday
And every mistake you’ve made in the past
Someday
Believe me
One day
You won’t feel like you’re too much
Or too little
One day you won’t battle your own mind into waking up in the morning
Someday
Soon
Everything will be okay
There’s is good in the world
There’s good here
Trust me

I daydream about death
Sometimes I wonder how it feels to be 6 feet under
I dream about the release of quiet
Of nothing
No stress
Daydreaming about my mother again
Hoping she’ll show up out of the blue
Come back for me
She won’t
This I know
I don’t want to die
I just think of it often
And I don’t know how to stop thinking
To stop feeling so much
Sometimes you wonder if you’re just as bad as him
Because you saw the mugshot of him
And how much he aged in the past months
So skinny, so stressed
You wonder if you’re just as bad
If you’re causing someone to stress so much
Am I causing him pain?
I don’t care
But I don’t want to turn out like him
I remember when he used to be so intimidating
When you thought no one would believe you
Because he was so convincing
I hope I never cause anyone pain
But I guess sometimes you have to
Because you need to protect others around you

Denial and Isolation
All you want to be is alone
You were always
Lonely
So you started talking to yourself
Like you were two people
You were left alone for so long
Now you choose to be alone
Because all you want to do is sleep
But no one will let you
You can’t believe she would do this to you
You can’t understand
What she could have possibly been thinking
She choose him over you
You are her daughter
She held you close
Rocked and nursed you
You thought she cared about you
How could she?
Why?
Why wasn’t I good enough for her?
2. Anger
I hate her
I don’t miss her
I remember everything she’s ever done
Like the time she slammed my head into her headboard
I remember how she let him scream at me and drag me into his pickup against my will
When I begged and screamed I didn’t want to go
And she said, “Nola, You have too.”
Because I knew what would happen
And so did she
Every time I was screamed at in front of her
When I told her I was suicidal
And she said I’d get therapy
That she would help me
But she never did
3.  Bargaining
If I had told someone sooner
If only I had done something
Anything
Moved, spoke
Told my mom everything that happened the moment it happened
Maybe just maybe
She would have believed me
Over him
When I have done nothing wrong
And he is everything wrong with our life
But she just can’t seem to kick him out
4. Depression
There’s nothing you can do
So why try?
Why do anything?
When nothing goes your way
No one understands
Every day something new happens
And it seems like the world is pinned against you
Like no one will give you a break
5. Acceptance
There will come a day
When you no longer
Daydream of what you should’ve been
Nothing you could have ever done warrants this kind of torture

One
They don’t know that 19-year-old doesn’t want them
The way they want to be wanted
To be needed
Like a housewife
To a loving caring husband
In their 30’s with four children and a great big house
He doesn’t share those dreams
Two
They like the attention they’re getting what they’ve never gotten before
When you used to be the ugly, weird girl
No one really paid attention to you
Until him
Even though you liked him first
Made sure he knew it
Had your friends help you message him
He was surprised
Three
He made you feel special
He told you that you were the only girl he was talking to
He told you that he seriously adored you
Four
We talked about everything
Almost
We talked about the good things in our day
We talked about movies
We talked about everything instead of what really was going on
I didn’t tell you I had an eating disorder
I didn’t tell you I was being abused
I didn’t tell you that every day I felt like ending it
That you and my friends were the only things keeping me tethered to the world
I didn’t tell you how much I loved you
How much I was falling
Five
You said how much you wanted to kiss me
Hold me, make sure that everything was okay
How you couldn’t wait for me to turn sixteen
11 months
Until...
Six
You couldn’t understand why I liked you so much
You said “I’m a letdown, It’s like when you thought you bought sweet tea but it’s actually unsweetened”
Verbatim
I thought that was so
Poetical
So deep
I realize now how wrong I was
Seven
You wanted to teach me how to kiss
Because I didn’t know how
I was unexperienced
Eight
We were so cringy
Looking back at it
I thought this supposed to be it
Calling you sweetheart and baby
When you barely knew the real me
You knew me but didn’t know
My trauma
What woke me up in the middle of the night
What I dreamed of
I longed for
My passion that I woke up every day to do
You didn’t know because I didn’t tell you
Because you never asked
Nine
You met my mom
Over video chat
I ensured her that she would love you
Just like I did
I told her all the good parts of you
And finally how happy I was with you
You said you were so nervous
But she didn’t think you were that bad
Ten
We wanted to meet up
We were going to meet at Hyvee
We planned it one day
When my mom had to pick up her medication
You were going to walk from your apartment while my mom went to the pharmacy
While I waited by the bathroom
Our plan was to have our first kiss
Maybe introduce you to my mom
Like we had both bumped into each other
Eleven
You were so much more attentive than Gabe
I told you about him
How he was my first real boyfriend
How he didn’t care
Or want to talk to me
But you did
And I thought
That was fantastic
Twelve
I thought I was the apple of your eye
But clearly I wasn’t
Thirteen
I got so many good poems out of you, it was crazy
Fourteen
Despite all the red flags I loved you
Fifteen
I was only fifteen