And so I stood
Stock-still
When the final
Words you uttered
Were so incongruous
With my
Perceived reality

Because
Though my ears
Which hear the slightest squeak
Of the mice
In the kitchen
From my bedroom
May have deceived me
I believe
You said
"I love you, too"
As you ran.

Be good enough?
Body and soul
There's not purity in me
And I want to be
Perfect

I want to be the snow
Before it ever touches the ground
To be the thought
Of love
For the first time
In an innocent mind
I want to be what he needs
Even if I don't know what that is.

My flesh, on my back
It screams, begs for the blade
The pain
Puncture it like duck-skin
With a knife
A blade
Oh GOD PLEASE
Just give me the pain
But I can't.

I cannot
Give the blessed pain
To my own skin
Because I can't hide it.
Thank
Everything
That he makes
Regular checks of my
Palescarred body
As we lay amongst
Comforter and stuffedanimalmonkeysandhedgehogs
I can't hide the lines
On the expanse of my back or thighs
Because he caresses them
Thank God he thinks
I'm perfect.

Reminisce
On years gone by
Already feeling too old
To be alive
I remember
When I was ten
I learned to lie
When my heart couldn't mend
What I was
Wasn't the way they wanted me to be
I twisted my everything
To find some lost ideal
I couldn't just be
A little girl in this world
My form had to transmute
Can't go back through the portal

I realize
The bandanna fits still.

It fits around my waist like it always has
For nearly 4 years.

Unfortunately, your love
Probably won't fit the same anymore.

The size of my waist may not have changed
But the shape and needs of my heart have.

It's not that I don't want your love
It's that you'd probably have to add material to make it fit.

There are already things
I can't quite remember
Like what books I made him read
If he still has them
Or if he never took them at all.

I can't quite recall
The color of his eyes
On the day we celebrated
6 months
Or a year
I cannot remember, and it aches within me
Because I want to.

It may be over.
I may not ever embrace him again,
Like so many others
He may be lost to me but I
Want to remember
The color of those bluegraygreen eyes
The way they were every day
Of the best relationship
Of my life.

And I know
That if I said the words
She did
That made you
Break


You would shrug them off
Because
From me
It doesn't matter