This is a love letter to all the love letters that I don't receive anymore

The flowers at my doorstep have withered and died

I have those letters...they're around here somewhere... I know I wouldn't throw them away...

Oh! Here they are - crumpled and worn, here, let me straighten them out

My eyes fall over the words written in your font, the inky black pen leaving it's imprint of you

Your vocabulary is extensive, I'll give you that, but what I read today is fluff

You're words sound like filler, like you're reading from a text book

I can't help but laugh to myself at the thought of ever falling for such ingenuity

You have a knack for luring girls in, I can see that, but keeping them is a different game

The empty words only go so far, pretty soon they will be able to see that somewhere within you a light has been turned off

Once they see it they won't be able to unsee it

They will fight and kick and scream because, "He's perfect!"

But your light have been turned off and there is nothing left but self preservation in your eyes

A primal animalistic streak, stuck in fight or flight

I hear animals have a 6th sense that kicks in when they are being mauled in the wild

This sense protects them from feeling a thing, their eyes glaze over, they stop fighting, they feel nothing

I see this in you, my love

You're stuck somewhere, somewhere that I can't reach, that nobody can reach

You're being eaten alive by your own teeth

Yes, I don't receive love letters anymore

The flowers at my door are brittle to the touch

But I would trade that any day

Because I'm no longer your prey

I read our last text last night

I read them for the 1000th time

My eyes glazed over the words that I have now memorized

Every word, every sentence, that has haunted me for two years

I read our text last night and something clicked

I saw who you were for the first time

The way you handle stress, rejection, disobedience in me

You hated when I had a voice

You hated when I spoke the truth

You lashed out with every tactic you had in your arsenal, trying to get me back

But I left

I left you after those texts

And I'm never going back

I see you for who you are now

It breaks my heart to see such a sad little boy, desperate for someone, anyone, to stay

But that won't be me

You used me to fill the empty gaps in your life

You can't sit still, you can't just "be", that's too real for you

You fill up your time with things

Push people away who don't fit your mold

I was miserable and so were you, but the difference is that you still are

I'm free from you, from the 180 pounds of dead weight I carried for four years

I have a skip in my step, a light radiating through my chest that has been cracked open

I see you now

I know who you are

And I don't want you anymore

I sit beautifully on his arm

A mix of silence and murmurs fill the room the second my heel makes contact with the marble floor

His mouth moves and I hear, “I love going places with you”

Initially my heart flutters and a shy smile spreads

Upon second thought, however, that smile fills with dread

Flashes of memories hit me like a train

I was never cared about, understood, or loved unconditionally

All he cared about was my size 2 body, big lips, long hair

I sit on his arm, posted up at my station

My dead smile widens as I become his perfect decoration

I can’t afford to leave, there’s too much at stake

If I make him mad, he won't talk to me for days

So I spend the night laughing, shaking hands, and receiving compliments, all of which are fake

I knew I wasn’t alone ,

the second I saw a husband refuse to allow his wife eat the cake

Pleasantries are shared and the night comes to an end

Staring at the ceiling, his snoring steady next to me, I realize,

I’m tired of being just a decoration

Take a hard look in the mirror before you go

Fix your hair, touch up your lips, is your eyeliner even?

Take a deep breath and remember that you’re here to put on a show

I’ll go with the long dress and boots, something that makes me feel my best

After all, lord knows how eager I am to pass this test

He told me to meet him at my least favorite bar

He’ll never know I hate it though, if we even get that far

I’ll bat my eyes and flip my hair

I can treat treat him better than all the other girls, unlike them, I actually care

I’ll even show him the way I can tie a knot with the stem of the cherry

Then maybe, just maybe, I’ll be the girl he wants to marry

My heavy arms lifts and lands on the empty space in my bed

My finger tips left cold without your warm skin to connect with

Bloodshot eyes slowly lower, lids coming to a close

For the millionth time I remind myself, this is what I chose

With my windows sealed tight, reality wears thin

My dreams fade into light, at first sight

Green and purple and blue and gold

And in my arms it’s you that I hold

We laugh and catch up, it feels like old times

But even in my dreams, you have a streak in your eyes

That streak is what scared me for all of those years

And that’s all I need to keep the door closed

For the millionth time I remind myself, this is what I chose