“Just this once,” you said.
I couldn’t wrap it around my head.
Your promise replayed and replayed:
“Those were my high school days
I’m done now
I’ll show you how
I’ll show you my grades
I promise you A’s
Oncology, psychology, Tour de France,
I wasted it last year, so now’s my chance.
I ****** up so badly
I love you so madly
I’ll prove to the world, to myself, and to you,
That with every vow I take I know I’ll come through.”

If you were so set on your integrity,
Why did you become the opposite of what you said you’d be?
Why did you say “I’ll be over at ten,”
Wait for my worried text at twelve, to which you said:
“Oh about that…yeah um, I hoped you’d forget.”

My list of why’s will always haunt me.
Why was everything you said so taunting?
Why did you always threaten to break up,
When all I needed was for you to hurry up?
30 minutes late? No worries, no big deal,
But after four hours of course I’d lose my chill.
I felt like an idiot, buns fused to the couch.
As time passed by, I became a ****** grouch.
You were out with your friends, unconcerned about me
Or the fact that you said you would be here at three.
Well, three became four, then five, six, and seven,
And you’d leave me to return to your friends at eleven.
“You’re tired of waiting for me? Keep yourself busy.
Use your creativity.
I won’t make time for you, that’s how it will be,
This is who I am, I dgaf, take me or leave.
'Good morning' and 'goodnight' are utter *******.
That’s not you and me, that’s Judy and Cliff.
You’re too **** sensitive, toughen up, be a man.”
But how can I when you always told me I can’t?

You were my *******, marijuana,
The more you’d say go away the more I’d want ya.
I got hooked to the feeling of having you around,
And now that you’re gone I always feel down.
But I slap my mouth shut before I can say,
“I miss you so dearly, oh please won’t you stay?!”
I’m an ex-addict, every time I want you back,
I remind myself you’re deceiving as a pipe full of crack.
I know you were bad to me,
but horribly addicting.


“Shut up now before I really get angry.
And when I get mad, I’m scary, trust me.”
I always shut up, I never persisted,
Because to every concern I expressed, you resisted.
I allowed you to threaten me, scared to see when
I awoke your dormant beast from within.


You had purple pants that I didn’t like,
I’d playfully say, “Don’t wear those tonight!”
One day in line at the DMV,
you reminded me my favorite shoes “are ******* disgusting.”
You always made sure to insult my attire,
But believe it or not, I’ve been told I inspire.
“Look at my two-hundred dollar French jeans,
How ****, son, I’m so ******* clean.
Now look at you in your thrift store outfit,
Compared to great me, humble you look like ****.”

I simultaneously felt like your mother
and your punching bag of a little brother.


Your words were the cookies to my Teflon-free brain,
I tried to unstick them; they drove me insane.
Hit after hit, after hit, after hit,
Your words were so spiteful,
Of my self I felt jipped.

I was the naïve fish that bit your line,
Of “You know I’m a good guy, so just stop crying.”
My tears would dry and I would feel fine,
But there was always an inkling in the back of my mind:
"This isn’t right, I don’t deserve this treatment,
I love him, I do, so why do I feel such resentment?"

You’d continue to reel me in with your words,
“I love you so much, Christy, of that I’m sure.
I love you more now than ever before.”

...


So tell me, sir, why, when I entered the door,
Just a few days after July twenty-fourth,
I opened my laptop to see on the internet
“Lu Rivas is single,”a few likes, and a comment?

Was this a joke? It had to be.
Considering just days before, you cried to me.
You cried to me? Or did you lie to me?
Which you did you expect me to believe?
The one who said “I used to do drugs,
Because of my horrible cheating first love,
I used to smoke ****
‘cause I couldn’t stand me.”
Or the one who got high two hours after,
Saying sobriety was a long-gone chapter?

The one who said “I’m gonna marry you one day,”
Or the one who said “This love **** is so ******* gay”?

The one who said, “We have all summer to hang,”
Or the one who said “Summer’s Wahb time, get over me, dang.”

The one who said “I’m gonna start training,
Doing well in school, cuddle you when it’s raining,”
Or the one who dropped classes, gave up himself,
To be with his friends and no one else?


“I love you because you’re so different”
Became “You’re too weird, you’re not liked by my friends.”

Were you the Lu who said “I’m in love with you,”
Or the one who said “That’s not true,
I have no feelings for you.”

It wasn't the fact that you liked to ****,
It was the fact that your every promise you broke.

I couldn’t believe a word you said,
My brain in a dizzied daze in my head,
Because the opposite would be acted upon;
My brain felt dead;
Constantly translating contradictory definitions
Apparently our dictionaries had opposing renditions.


“I keep you around because you care for me genuinely”
Became “Let me breathe, I don’t want you around me!
I don’t give a **** about you or your interests,
And I haven’t since day one, please understand this.”


Laziness, impatience, irresponsibility,
Every one of your problems was my liability.


You might be doing well now; I’ve no way of knowing,
But I see that your happiness keeps your smile still glowing.
Just thinking about your smile made mine grow, too.
But to you, it was an inconvenience to share a laugh or two.

I never changed who I was,
Or pleased my friends’ desires
While you slowly wanted to get higher and higher.
I wasn’t enough anymore,
Just a hassle and a bore.

I knew I was being naïve and immature,
So shame on me for believing your now-transparent words.
You were so authentic, your words were opaque.
Now I see right through them, all of them; fake.
Is fake too harsh of a word to use?
I don’t think so, I’m the one you used.
I gave you what you wanted, and at first, you did too.
But as time progressed, we weren’t one, but two.

Oh, and I must have forgotten to mention,
How you never really got over that girlfriend.
You used me to fill in the hole that she left,
Until you realized that I wasn’t enough.
I wasn’t a *****, didn’t boss you around,
She barked at you constantly and you didn’t make a sound.
But you left me the week after
You started to reconnect with her.
Just a coincidence? I highly doubt it.
You missed the girl who made you her *****.
Might I even bring up how she cheated on you,
To make you stay, should I have been unfaithful, too?

I lost you to popularity, to the glamour of high school,
You hang on by the skin of your teeth to stay cool.
Partying, not caring, big ticket items.
Days I heard stories of, I knew you weren’t over them.
"Those were the days, God that was great,
Green crack, ecstasy, alcohol poisoning."

You steered clear of the man I fell in love with,
And returned to the 16-year-old kid I felt no connection with.

"I’m gonna go back now, return to my glory,
If I do something to hurt you, I won’t say I'm sorry.
I know I was good when I met you,
But that person I was is now gone,
The clean me was so ******* boring
I will not change me for anyone.
I lost who I was, but now I am found,
Go find someone else, go fetch a rebound."


So if you hate me now, I couldn’t care less,
Just remind yourself that I gave you my best.
Family parties meant I thought you were real,
I wouldn’t have taken you if I knew you’d repeal.

You used to be so bright, so effervescent
As time went on you seemed so disconnected.
Impatient and harsh, rude and abrasive,
I couldn’t please you.
Your “love” was evasive.

You steered so clear of the you that I met,
Not leaving you is my biggest regret.
I wish we could turn the clock back and switch places,
So you could see how hard it is to feel sad with happy faces.

Because the eggs I made you were always cooked wrong,
Understanding things took me too long,
My clothes were too cheap,
My face was too different,
I wasn’t your happiness,
I was your ailment.

I need liberation from feeling so down,
To remove this heartache I wear as a crown.
But I’ll try to remove this gilded hat,
'cause you dumped me on Facebook,
And that is that.