exposure to you was the worst thing that could've happened to me, you taught me wrong and that it was good to hurt. you told me i wasn't good enough, that i was an introspection of disaster just waiting to happen. you weren't ever a loving hand to hold, you were the hands that burned me. you told me i was spiteful, naïve, and that i sang all the lyrics to your favorite songs wrong. you always walked around with balled fists and eyes darker than the embers sitting in the fireplace from love letters i wrote you that you didn't even pretend to read, in that moment i'm pretty sure that i burned holes into my shoes from staring at them for so long. i tended to tiptoe around you because you cut my lips with broken promises and gave me swollen black eyes. when i was with you i learned that the truth hurt because with you i didn't just get a slap on the wrist, i got 3rd degree burns from the words you said to me that are forever burned into my heart. i can't remember the last time i took a breath without getting choked with the hands of a man that was supposed to love me. the day i packed my bags was the day you told me malevolence would follow me wherever i went, i chose not to believe you. but i was wrong because you can see the burns, bruises, and cuts to prove that you kept one promise.