(Inspired by Ethan Smith's poem of the same title.)

You’ve taken so many different pieces
of others’ personalities
and put them together to form me
that I don’t even know who the real me is anymore…
Let alone knowing that I am still partially you,
as much as I hate it,
I have to recognise it…
and what’s more
As much as I hate it,
I don’t hate you
don’t hate the way you still bore a hole
into my heart,
Remember that.
Sarah…
I haven’t said your name in so long
because I’ve spent years trying to convince everyone-
myself included-
that you were gone,
that you are nothing but a distant, fallacious,
distorted memory,
that the thought of you drowns out my reality
and leaves me shaking and broken
and that at the same time,
I haven’t changed a ******* thing about myself,
but we both know that
that’s complete *******.
We are two completely different people,
you made me feel like a prisoner within myself,
but I suppose you were only doing
what you thought needed to do
to survive.
It’s a shame it didn’t work,
I’m sorry, that we ran out of time.
When grandma said her baby girl had died,
that the light had gone from her eyes
she was wrong,
I told her so
but she’d be incorrect to assume that you
are still living inside of me,
instead you are ticking inside of me,
ticking like a bomb waiting to explode,
Sarah.
The name sounds foreign
your eyes are terrifying me
your old friends are boring the hell out of me;
your voice is one I don’t recognise.
Hell, I barely recognise myself anymore
and I guess I have you to thank for that
But remember
as much as I hate the fact
that you still exist inside of me…
I have to recognise that
I can’t hate someone who was me for so long.