regret.
i regret letting you in.

love will always start with illusion.
and i fell in love with
the mirage you displayed.
i told myself that
the person i fell in love with
was still there.
that is why i stuck around

for so long.

for so long i believed that you still loved me
as much as the sun loved the sky.
even when you said you didn’t,
even when your voice didn’t feel like

home.

home was late night conversations.
home was your laugh ringing in my ears.
but what was once the house we loved in,
it is now dominated by ghosts.

it has been 8 months.
i still

regret.
i regret letting you in.

i told my therapist about you,
while your lips were still slathered alllll over my body.
i showed her the places we had been,
and all the things we had seen.
i told her what lies underneath that pretty
                                              pretty
skin of yours,
and i told her how i knew.
i spelt out your name as she scribbled it on her cute little clipboard,
i told her about the   first     night
and the      second
and the   fourth
and that time in the closet.
i told her everything,
i really just wanted to   get
                                                  you
                                      out  
of my brain,
it didn't matter if saying these things put me in  sososo  much pain.
because you've  moved   on  so why can't i?
i told my therapist about you,
but i still can't tell you
                                           goodbye.  
i know i'm  s t u p i d,
for holding on this l
                               o
                                n
                             ­    g,
i know it's useless,
for wishing you weren't                              gone.
but my words carry on like a heartbeat
s     l      o      w
steady
                          fast
u   s   e   d
  n    t   a   y
i   keep   keep   keep  breaking and breaking and breaking and
i told my therapist about you.

I felt so happy. I was so excited. Me and Xavier had been invited to a double date with some of our long time no see friends. Liam was bringing his girlfriend, and Carter was tagging along. It was full of kisses and couple pictures, spilled popcorn and fights over cinema seats, murmures whispers to one another asking who the hell had forgotten to boy some water. It was fun. It was really fun. We went bowling after the movie and I was nervous. I had only gone bowling once and I was awful. But I felt confident enough to play. Confident enough to play and massively fail. Note to self: you are awful at bowling. But so did Leah. We were all making jokes, checking who had won in the other lanes, jumping and dancing in those uncomfortable mandatory shoes. I'm surprised we didn't get kicked out. And we got hungry. So we went to eat. To an overly priced pizza restaurant, with neon lights and old rock playing in the background. Carter was screaming for water as Leah and Liam made out in a booth. Xavier and I, we just stared at them in disbelief and apologized to waiters who passed by. The food came. And we ate. We ate like we had never had food before. I wasn't scared to eat in front of them. I wasn't scared to eat. I was so proud of myself. As soon as we finished I went to the bathroom. But on the way there I saw a table looking at me from the corner of my eye. With all my past relationships I didn't want to look directly at them. But an old review makeup mirror did the trick for me. And there I saw them. In a corner table sat a group of about fifteen people. A group of people who made my life impossible back in the day. I saw my ex. My abusive manipulative ex. The ex that started everything: from my self harm to my eating disorder. I saw the girls who made fun of me at school. And I remember the years of bullying I went through. I saw all the girls who abandoned me and turned their backs to me just because someone else came along. A better version of me. One that wasn't scared to go eat out and preferred walking around town to sitting in a living room playing video games. So. I kept walking. I didn't bother looking back. I put on a firm look to try and hide my shaking hands and teary eyes. and I made it back to my table. But Leah, my poor Leah, she couldn't have chosen a better day to start her period. So I went with her. I had to. She needed help. As she sorted herself out I looked proudly at my makeup in the mirror. But then I saw. I saw them moving, walking towards me. All of them coming in at the same time, blocking the door for me to escape. They might have thought I was alone in there. As they looked at me top and down, Leah stormed out of the toilet saying how the boys were waiting for us outside. And so the only thing they were brave enough to do was ask me if the toilet was free. If they could go in. And they said it with such disgust that the only thing that was left to do was for me to laugh. And that's what I did. And with the fear in my veins and blood rushing everywhere I grabbed Leah's hand and left those ******* with the remains of my fake but honest laugh. I would have punched them. I really wanted to. But it's not my place to start hell in a restaurant toilet.