You were slightly delusional from handfuls of sleeping pills with
high amounts of diphenhydramine which led to hallucinations.
I tried to reason with you but when you punched the wall,
I felt my entire body contract out of empathy and
my fight-or-flight kicked in and for once,
I chose flight.

Your phone number popped up on my screen,
I answered, ready to tell you that I’d never come back
to this complex to give you another chance,
and you threatened my worst fear.

I panicked at first, then matched your threat with my own,
but mine was calling first responders to take you themselves
so I forced you into my car and you screamed until the vocal folds
across your larynx couldn’t produce anymore curse words.

You stared at the bleached tiles and refused to talk to the nurse in triage;
I muttered key phrases to get you admitted
intermittently between sobs that caught the waiting room’s attention,
especially when I whispered “ex-girlfriend”.

Protocol called for an observation period and the sitter
in charge of watching you for the moment looked up
from her chart occasionally, slyly listening to you
harshly hissing that you didn’t want me there anymore.
I flinched towards the curtains and I slinked along the walls
until I was able to walk out the door and leave you behind.

When I talked to the nurse privately, he ensured you would be evaluated,
that I did the right thing by taking you in, that I might have saved your life.
He promised that we were both safe now.

Except, I am not safe.

It has been two weeks since I left through those sliding hospital doors.
I am terrified that every motorcycle I hear on the road
could be you tracking me down or I will see you every time
I walk out of the class on the same campus as yours or
that I will never be able to open up the walls you made me build
around my secrets that you used as ammunition against me
to validify your anger in arguments that you started.

I imagined a life for us so different from this and now,
I’m not even safe in my own thoughts because
they’ve already betrayed me so much.