He sits,
silent for a month now,
a silence that fell upon my request.
It was my hands that placed the tape upon his lips.

His lips which I kissed with a fever
I haven’t felt since I was thirteen
and woke in the middle of the night only to find
that I hadn’t slept at all.

It was my hands that bound his.
His hands that wound me up
until all that was left was the desire to be his doll.
Something he could pretend to love,
without the responsibility that comes attached to it.

Attached like how he claimed he was to me.
Pretty words
like cobwebs in the corners of my room
that I can’t quite reach.
Can’t quite clean.

Clean like the white lies he adored so much.
The white lies that split my skin in two,
allowed him to crawl passed my barriers
that I had spent so long building.

A sad and foolish boy who mistook my body as his home.
As shelter while he felt weak.
Something to use.

Apologies in the form of an excuse,
and I can’t help but pray for the woman who allows him to speak.