I will retaliate with his mouth,
and you will become what you have made
me.
-- you leave me to stagnate;
talking myself in and out of love, I
forget the curvature, and allure of your body,
and the parts of me that fit in it
starve.

-- call it neutrality, abandonment,
or an "inability to live within" yourself -
call it your serotonin's-seppuku, or
the fact you are inconsiderate;

call it out, like you did in your sleep: "I love
you;"
I do not.

We are a collection of our own experiences. A destruction of our own making, we undo ourselves with what we've learned, unlove ourselves with what we've learned.

I have looked in the mirror to a stranger too many times for my liking. The girl that I became mirrored back in agony to the girl she wanted to be. She wanted to be a poet, she wanted to be a portrait. She wanted to be stronger.

My experiences have become me. But I don't want to be defined by broken hearted and tormented by my dreams. I don't want to be defined by the dark circles under my eyes, the heart beat in my ears. I wanted to be stronger.

I have looked in the mirror too many times and seen stranger, seen liar, seen a girl who kept too much bottled up and my demons creep behind me like the horror movies I'm so akin to watching. They wave hello like they belong and I have to break my stare.

The poet in me says this is another experience, another lifeline, another tether to the earth that I love so much. An earth that I love so much that it broke me.

The poet in me says this experience will make me stronger.