It’s the memories of your fingers dancing across my skin at all the places you’d touch me so carefully.
Maybe you’re aware I’m already broken,
Gentle to avoid further damage,
Or maybe your first language is softness, delicate understandings of how to move with my body.

It’s a dark night.
And I sit here,
Cigarette choking me.
But I realise I have learnt so much.
One thing I realised,
Through the tortured delusions,
Is that I am strong.
You taught me strength.
To crawl through the mud,
Dust my bones from the ashes,
They didn’t dissolve in the flames set alight by you.
You taught me,
I can unbury my head,
Push out the heavy smoke
And breathe.
Especially when the lights are gone
And nothing seems tangible.
You taught me to grab a hold,
And pull myself out.

Everyone uses me as a diving platform,
To plunge into their own happiness.
But I still have stage fright.
I’m still scared of drowning…
Of trying.
Shuffle my feet to the edge…
And I jump backwards.
My biggest regret
Is the plunge I won’t take.
Because what if the pool is empty?

I’m like a carnival ring toss prize.
Except modified to be easier won.
Claimed, played with, cared for
And then dropped
But with a limb torn off and pocketed.
All before they’ve left the booth.
So I get grabbed by the attendant,
And strung back up to be won and discarded again.
People easily get bored,
I’m already broken,
So why not take a piece?

Stroll in,
Stay a little,
Take what you need…
What you desperately want.
Leave.
Leave.
Leave.
The door never stops spinning.
Earthquake, storm..
Not even a calm summer breeze
Can make anyone stay.

Nothing steadies the dizziness.
Nothing eases the gagging pain.
Nothing ends this.

I hate that you took away my ability to believe that anyone loves me.
I hate that you twisted my mind in places that forced me to be afraid,
Constantly.
I hate that you made the self hate cut deeper.
You made me hate myself so much more.
I hate that you made me feel so ******* insane,
In a way that I thought I deserved the pain…
Self inflicted or otherwise.
I hate that I begged you to **** me
Just to make the pain stop
And to satisfy this weirdly imbedded thought that somehow it would make your life easier.

I hate you and the ghosts and the scars you’ve left me with.
I hate you and I didn’t deserve this.

And whilst there  are moments like this…
Where I feel empty and worthless.
Know that the times where I feel ten feet tall and more powerful than a god are far more common.
You’ve taken things, pieces of me. But you can’t take anything else.

I hate that my only experience of love,
Before now,
Was a demonstration of narcissisms bargaining chip.
The soul source of a narcissists food to feed the ego.
Because for a long time,
I was in deep belief that love was fleeting.
Here one second,
Non existent the next.
Torturous…
And devoid of any warmth falsely portrayed in movies, books and the lives of my friends.

I hate that I was conditioned to believe love was regimented.
Structured and strictly used to service you.

Affection was a mirage
Shown only when I must’ve needed a reminder to cling to false hope that this was real.

And while some romance films
Toy with the idea of some small sacrifices being involved
None ever quite explained that you had to forfeit your dreams for a narcissists ego.
Luckily, this was something you explained to me.
I should’ve graduated 3 years ago…

Despite your hard hard work to convince me love wasn’t real,
That I was nothing of worth.
I am being loved, shown I too can be supported, encouraged.
And I am stronger
And worthier
And happier
Than I think you are ever capable of feeling.

The hole you’ve dug is a deep one,
Get comfy before they fill it in.