i’ve been grieving
for the girl who used to live here
who was sprawled on this bed
disgusted by her own body,
my own body,
and yet

i am grieving for her
and the bedsheets are privy to my despair
because i am shapeless and nothing
even though i am still the same body
except now it is the only thing of mine
that i’m not disgusted by

this is a body you want, is it not?
that you wouldn’t mind touching,
getting lost in for a fleeting moment
before you discard of me;
i used to think my body was the reason
i bored you
and that if you didn’t love it,
i shouldn’t either

but i think there was a lot
of my awkward laughter and awful jokes you had to get through
before you realised
maybe i could be
hot

and then it became a matter of
convincing me that you could like my jokes
and me, for all my faults and shortcomings

and there is no one i expected this less from
which is why i handed myself to you
with the tools and a handbook on how to dismantle me
and i told you things that made me
me, things i could never have back

and i gave you my body
with confidence i didn’t know lived within me;
you were the only one i wanted
the only one i wanted to want me
and for one night
i didn’t feel like a pit stop
but someone in love
who could be loved

i didn’t expect this from you
and i don’t know what to do with my body
because i didn’t expect our friendship
to be synonymous with you wanting to **** me
and i couldn’t imagine a world where
sweet, sensitive and awfully bad at flirting
you would make my body disposable

but my body
has been disposed of;
and so has my laugh,
and my jokes,
because you loving me
meant me loving me
and i don’t think you are mean
or evil for not wanting me

but i can’t even hate myself
because i don’t know who i am anymore

i’ve been grieving
for the naive girl who put you on a pedestal
and herself right next to you,
who was more ashamed of herself
than her love for you;

and
one thing
i know about the nameless person
lying in my bed
is that she no longer has it in her
to love herself.