The warning signs I didn't pay attention to,
because I was too busy loving you.

1. Your hands felt like tight clothes that didn't fit
and I couldn't find a return receipt.
2. My interests, to you, were like destinations-
you could drive me away from them at will.
3. My days, were etched in your palms
and you could break them, just as easy
as you could make them feel comfort.
4. You never let me feel things.
5. You always made me feel bad for loving you.
6. But you made me feel like loving you
was the only thing I could do right in the relationship.
7. Our future consisted of nothing but
the outline you wanted to draw.
You were an artist-
all you ever knew
was how to pain things
the way you desired.
8. You hated my friends
and any time spent with them
with anyone other than you.
Too green eyed
and not enough purple heart.
You did not honor who I truly was.
9. You hated my family-
Even though in 2 and a half years
you only "tolerated" them a handful of times.
But just like every other aspect of my life
they were found too inadequate.
10. You broke me down into a person
I wasn't even sure I recognized anymore
spending everyday morphing myself
into someone I thought
you would be able to love better.

But you never loved me better
and so I went backwards.

It took me a long time
to realize the abuse
that was captivating my life.
Someone doesn't have to hit you-
for it to be considered abuse.
Learn this.  
Repeat the warning signs
inside your head
until they register.

One day I will have to teach
my children to stand up straight.
Not to take anyone's ****
and to run far away when
someone else makes them
feel like their love isn't worth it.
I will be strong-
head held high
while knowing
in the same exact breath
I am a hypocrite.

I walked on my hands
a while after you left.
Not knowing
what the ground felt like
underneath my feet,
they needed a break.
I've always walked on eggshells.

My palms are bruised
so still I sit-
trying to prove myself to you.

Am I not worthy still?
Seems my mind is fixated
on proving this simple notion.

You hated most things about me,
so I started to despise myself.

Clothes unworn
would hang in my closet
and I would wish
that they would swallow me whole
on the way to your home
but you would've choked
on the effort of comfort.
You would've gone numb
at my self-expression.

I morphed myself into her-
into them
into the bubble
you were drowning in.  
So I became a victim too.
I knew how to swim
but I needed my hands to walk with
and they were too sore
from trying to bend over backwards
while keeping balance.

I still haven't made sense-
not about what has become of us.

The wound is still there
and I would like to expose you to it.
Show you the holes inside my heart
that you punctured one year at a time.

Life without you feels void.
Life without you feels better.
Life without feels like me-
so why am I still crying?

He likes the hoop in my nose
and the dying of my hair-
he loves the fact I'm a mess,
and everything you were never fond of.
He loves the parts of me you forgot were there.

This love reminds me
I should forgive you.
But when the pain in my heart flinches
and his words poke at the scars
I know why I shouldn't.

How your love tore me into bits
and now every time his love comes my way I flinch.
I'm supposed to be getting better-
but the thought of you still won't let me.
Even in the aftermath you still control what's left.
I sulk in the thoughts of you-
becoming bereaved.

The ambivalence
   trickles down my throat,
I feel it settling
   inside of my stomach.
Indecision makes it's way into
   every part of me.

I'm whimpering
from the devastation.

Painstakingly
stagnant.

Taking the necessary
measure so I can breathe.

Still it sits
   like acid
   inside of my stomach.
Awaiting the moment
   I regurgitate it all back to you.

Memorizing the pain
like warning signs-
   sketchy shadows
   in a parking lot
so I kept my doors locked.
Turned the radio down
so I could prepare
for anything that would
make me afraid again.

You are the locked door
and the anxiety
of not remembering
if I took the right
precautions this time.

Maybe I didn't
check my rear view
    close enough
and I have no idea
a car has been
   following me for miles-
checking my progress
   watching as I switch lanes
   making sure I'm aware
   of the imminent threat
   it poses towards my future.

You are the stove
   I can't remember if I left on.
You are the straightener
   that burned a hole
   through my carpet.
I was unaware
   of the heat-
   or the consequences
I just wanted to feel full-
   to feel pretty.

I'm always looking backwards
   at the damage
   that has been made of me.
Seems I'm always
   looking over my shoulder
expecting for you
to be standing there
   reminding me why
   there is nothing left of me.
The pieces I have
taped together have
your initials outlined
in the remains.
   I can't rid of you-
Or the inhibition
  or the hindrance
left inside of my bones.
I am a weak, frail
   skeleton of a person.

Now I always,
keep my doors locked.

Blink twice
this is nothing short
of a mid-mid-life crisis.
And you can use
  these vices
  as an oath to your past
  a signature
on your obituary.

I started writing mine
  long before I knew I died.
  long before deception
  hid in the back of lungs -
  and the reputation of my liver
  yes it proceeds itself
  and I seem to repress it all.
                                            
I'm tired of running scared
compromise holds me
  like a warm gun-
  a vice grip
  on these vices
And I feel it
starting to slip.

kiss the barrel baby
you never know
  when the safety's off
  Don't you trust me?
  just say you do.
Don't you trust me?
  I don't
well neither did you.  

Watched you lie
   (In your sins)
   And on your back
You roped me in
   and won't throw me back
Sinking ship
Abandonment.
This is where repetition
meets Russian roulette
   play it back again.

The days they blend
and bend
only to begin again.

So I take shape
  for my name sake
  to placate
  makeshift benevolence.

Where common courtesy
   meets common sense
Where your pretty penny            
   changes to a pence
   now it's worthless.

You feel the mask
   it shields your gums
   from a razor tongue
   bleeds blue
   but all you see is red.

This mockery you
   have made of me
   what a tragedy
   catastrophe.

You won now
    a trophy
in the evening hour
    take my mind
I won't be needing it

Not like I used to-
Not like us two
    got used to the abuse
Who used who?
   You used me.

Breathe me in
Wear me out.
Break me
thread by thread
Wash me scolding
watch me shrink
and burn
and wither.
Watch me
no longer fit
Come untied
And undone
Just at the press
Of a single button.

I am not here to make sense
Or to change.
Or run spin cycle
On repeat until
All my color fades
And becomes nonexistent-
I rub off on you.

Our shades mix too much
I ruin things
With my vibrance.
Never one tone
Never just pigment
Always either void
Or immense.

Drown me in hue
air dry my insides
I want to be left
And sulking
In the heaviness
I have soaked myself inside.

Too tight
Can't breath
I am unfit.

he has undone
my insides
and on the outside
I am fine.

But the little girl
underneath all of these clothes
is screaming for me to notice her.

and I don't
history repeats itself
and even I see myself
as too much to pay attention to

I can't help but feeling nostalgic.

For I have seen myself
crying alone in a mirror
too many times to count
and I have hurt myself
alone facing a mirror
more times than I can count.

I am tired of these numbers
wrapping themselves around my neck
as if age is just another death sentence
as if these years spent are the chair
kicked out from under me.

I am hanging by a thread.
washed up and worn out-
all on the idea that
things can get better
and that these problems
are not the reasons
I am drowning
like these thoughts
are not anchors to my illness.

I thought I was making progress-
but instead I was staying stagnant.
Awaiting the next tragedy
so I could pity myself again.

This is not what recovery
is supposed to look like.

His hands are all over me
on the same nights I wish to die
it sort of feels like high school again.

Curled up
using my own tears
to wipe off my makeup
I spent little time putting on
because I care just enough
but not enough.

My best friend dies-
he is there
laughing at the timeline of my progression
telling me if he could've
he would've came back a long time ago
to diminish me himself.
But he realized he has already done that
so he smiles at the thought of it.

My timeline has been thrown aside
kicked away like the chair beneath my feet.
What is holding me up anymore?

I saw her too
sitting there
all to aware of existence
so I made conversation.
The guilt struck over her eyes
like she was playing the memory
in her head when she saw me.
We talked about her hair,
and my job
and my brother.

All I could think about
were how my insides were rotting.
How my face showed a **** good facade
because all I wanted to ******* do was crack
and break and dissipate into nothingness.

Here I am now,
standing on the edge of relapse
and sanity
thinking about how good my life was
encompassed with tragedy
before I knew how happiness felt
before I knew how good I could have it.

Take me back,
to the black in my mind
and the ignorance in my skin.

Wear me out
and spread me thin.

I am tired of taking up all of this space.
I am tired of you breaking my head.

No progression,
only stay-put
only just here
only barely floating.

Maybe,
not even that.