"I don't want you anymore."

"I don't love you anymore."

"It's YOUR fault that we're here. YOUR fault."

"Someone else can deal with your crazy."*

Do you remember saying those words to me?

Because I do.

Despite my efforts to forget,
I hear them always,
Resonating,
Still echoing within
The confines of my mind
Months later,
After I ran from
And pushed off
And drank to
And finally faced
The kind of pain
We only imagine we can experience
Until it becomes that brutal
And humbling reality.

Do you remember cutting into me
With your careless words
And malicious intent
To deflect responsibility,
To blame it on me
That what had been hit head-on
And swerved around
And left on the side of the road to die
Was finally dead?

Because I remember feeling them,
Ripping at the tendons of my heart
Hollowing out the center of my being
Until I finally knew what it was like
To be a shell along the shore,
An article of emptiness
Aching for someone to pick me up
And put me to their ear,
So they might listen to
The cresting and falling waves
Of my suffering.

And do you, by chance,
Remember
The thanklessness with which
You returned my belongings
(But not the wasted two and a half years),
The blankness with which
You looked at me,
As if you hadn't taken the last thing
I had had to give,
As if you hadn't walked me to hell and back
With your insecurities
And irrational fears
And low self-esteem,
As if you hadn't broken
My indomitable spirit
Over and over again,
Until I thought I might finally
Be left with nothing?

Because I do.

Do you remember that little voice
In the back of your mind
That tried to be heard
As you spat those hateful words at me,
As you threw away everything
That meant anything,
As you looked at me like a stranger
Intruding on your personal space,
When you had come to know
Just about everything about me...
That little voice that murmured softly -
Albeit falling hard and fast on deaf ears,
Not unlike how we had -
That one day you might regret
Walking away?

No.

You suffocated that little voice,
Smothered it with your pride,
Your tender,
Delicate,
Obnoxious pride,
Pride in nothing
To be particularly proud of.

You suffocated it
The way you suffocated me
With your arsenical tongue,
Sweet on the surface
And killing me slowly
With every word you spoke.


"We wouldn't have made it in the end."

You're right. We wouldn't have.
For any and every reason
You could think of,
Whether or not it was the truth.
You didn't want us to make it.
So we didn't.

But then, maybe it's better to walk away,
So that what wouldn't make it in the end
Can make room for something
That doesn't have an end to be made.

It was in his arms that I found this clarity,
This realization that you had to
Break me,
Shatter me,
Leave me as wide open
As my wounds
So that I could let him in.

It was hearing his words,
So conflicting with yours,
That brought me to the idea
That I was not as worthless
As you had made me
Out to be.
The idea that
Even in my most vacant moments,
I could fill someone else's void.
That even in my greatest fury,
I can bring someone peace.
That when my demons
Are not sleeping,
And making me Hell
To be around,
That at my most worthless,
When I am nothing
Or at least perceive myself to be,
There is someone
To whom
I can mean everything.

Though it will be the last
And only time
I ever thank you again
(And of course you will
Never know that I have),
I must do so.

I must thank you for having
The cowardice to walk away
Without a glance back
Or a second thought given
Or a single regret had
About what you did to me.

Because,
To have been abandoned
The way I was
And found
The way I was
Is to look back and realize
That there was nothing
I could have said or done,
Given or taken,
Declared or renounced,
Nothing I could have meant to you
That would have saved you
From what you can't be saved from.


Your misery is your only companion now.

*And my happiness is mine.