What would things look like
if I could press
rewind?
Take myself back to that moment
and make sure it never
happened?
What would it be like,
to not be
naive?
To know then,
that you had nothing to do
with me;
Were just drunk on
yourself?
To push you away
and be
certain?
Before feelings complicated the mix?
What would it be like
to have never
loved you?
To like myself
better again,
To be sure
—once more—
that I would never be so
stupid,
What would it be like if I’d never met you?

Real love isn’t meant to be brutal. We perpetuate this idea that it is, because we want there to be a reason in our suffering, and we want there to be hope that the person who’s making us suffer will change, because they love us and that means they’ll get better eventually. But real love isn’t meant to brutalise us. Real love is supposed to make us feel happy and secure, and even when we fight it shouldn’t be like the world’s ending, because we should still know that the other person cares about us. It’s not a rollercoaster ride that we’re terrified of falling off of, it’s someone who makes us better. They make us feel better, and they make us want to be better people, and we want to learn and grow and change and show them our world. Love isn’t brutal, unless someone doesn’t love you enough.

I am swallowed whole.
I reach out to you.
You leave me
alone.

And so the shoe drops,
Easily, easily
It’s much easier for you to wound me,
than wear your human mask over lizard skin.
You gnash your teeth and flail your limbs,
like a stupid ******* lizard person.
How hard is it to check in when you’ve said something so worrying?
How hard is it to speak?
Or is it just that words don’t issue,
from betwixt your lizard beak?

I wish, I wish, I
Wish.
But it’s dumb. I should stop.
Maybe once more, for you.

What was it about that moment that made him love you less?
Was it that you needed him, and he was supposed to be the one needing you?
Was it the use of it? That you didn’t share, simply asked of him?
Was it the failure?
Or was it just that before you were unmarred, unblemished,
An unreality?
And then all at once you were just like everyone else.
What was it that made him love you less?