Chameleon

Chameleon Aug 22

When I got there last night
his daughter came out of
her room and said,
yay you’re here!
She ran over to hug me
and I told her she looked taller.
She said, I am!
She plopped down on the couch
and began telling me about
everything she had done since
I’ve seen her last.
She was playing with the same
marble I had been the weekend before.
Then she looked at the table
and said,
You left your necklace here!
I acted like I didn’t know
and said,
oh yeah! I’ve been looking for it.
She noticed.

He hadn’t said anything
to me all week,
but he watched me
put it back on.

Chameleon Aug 22

Perfume

Sometimes
I put on a few
drops of the perfume he
bought me for
Valentine’s Day.
The one where he took me
to an Italian place
because he knows spaghetti
is my comfort food.
We were genuinely happy
that day.

Even though maybe
just two weeks before
he slapped me during
an argument,
and two weeks later he would
break up with me.

And I would try to break
the bottle of perfume
on the bathroom floor
and swear I’d never
smell it again.
But sometimes,
I still put it on.

Chameleon Aug 19

Necklace

I knew it was over
by the time he finally
laid down next to me.
Very far away.
So I left the necklace
I always wear on his table.
As a question or a test.
See if he notices
that I never come back for it.

He hasn’t worn its match
in months anyway.

Chameleon Aug 19

Nice porch

As I’m laying on
the front porch fold out chair
I’m looking at the house
next door.
It’s beautiful and mature
under the full moon,
clouds racing by.
Looks comfortable and safe.
Warm.
I wonder if the
woman who
lives there ever sleeps on
the porch too,
to get away from
the man inside.

Chameleon Aug 19

Marble

I keep ending up
in this bed alone.
Squishing this stupid
marble he tossed at me
earlier,
and said
Keep it safe.
Its been rolling between
my fingers ever since.
But I can’t stop wondering
why,
why he’d give me this
with no intention behind it.
No intention.
The marble.
Or his word to me.

Chameleon Aug 14

Bathroom break

Sometimes you just
have to go cry in the bathroom
and wonder why you’re
not enough
and
feel such an intense
pain that only a hug
and love from one person
who isn’t there would solve,
and then go back to work.

Chameleon Aug 13

Self worth

I’m trying to remind
myself that he only
sparkles because I shine.
I look at him through
rose colored glasses,
and think all of his flaws
are cute.
But I am the firefly
that makes him glow,
and the sun that
peaks through after
a storm.
I was all of these things
before him,
now
and
always.