i don't know what the hell you were thinking
but here i am left stuck in the mess
picking up the pieces, barely thirteen

a sea of eyes staring back at me, cold, curious
meeting my gaze but not my needs, that’s for sure
a lot of boys but not a single man in sight
wolf in sheep’s clothing, prowling, now he’s pounding at the door
he’s got me in his grips, but out i slip

and i don't know why or how you chose me but i'll never forget it
confused and betrayed, i grew to deeply regret it
what i said? did? what i wore?
no
it was ever. meeting. you.

the two of us were having fun
or so i thought
of course, i never foresaw how the tides would turn
and definitely never forgot

thought i was using you (antidepressant)
then i realized how much you’d been using me
and how much worse off i actually was because of it

(before you ask)
yes i was drinking
yes my skirt was probably short
back in my years of performing femininity with troubling force
why doesn’t anybody ever ask what the aggressor wore
oh wait i know this one: because it doesn’t ******* matter

we were both blackout
for different reasons
yet i still get a particular chill right down my spine
during the early seasons

a lot of good memories here
i will admit it
but one night
that’s all it takes
whether you can’t remember OR forget it

i can remember the crisp winter air on my exposed skin in the courtyard

i can remember the way you said my name, colder than the air around us

i can remember your eyes on me, your hands, pinning me there

i can remember their eyes on me, their mouths gone where they should be

i can remember the fear in my heart, pumping out an SOS with every beat

i can remember grabbing your hands to get them off my body

i can remember wishing one of them would put their hands on yours

i can remember running for my life towards the single-stall bathroom

i can remember flashes of my thirteen years in slow motion

i can remember relief as my days of racing boys proved its worth

i can remember slamming that door, but not locking it, but i guess i did

i can remember you on the other side pounding your fists into the door

i can remember the way you called my name this time; teasing, taunting

i can remember your footsteps growing distant as i sank to the floor

i don’t remember how or when i got the strength to pick myself back up

i don’t remember much else of that day, that week, that month, that year

i don’t remember a time i wasn’t afraid of being not quite fast enough

i don’t understand and i don’t think i ever will
siding with a monster that they know put me through years of hell

choosing him repeatedly
turning their fake snake backs on me
while he moves on so happily?

[deep sigh]

**** that.
and honestly?
*******, too, if you side with him
making all kinds of judgments like you’d know the type of pain i’m in

i had set plans and goals and aspirations a-plenty
long gone now, stuck in my feelings and my ways well in my twenties
my brain machine on repeat cycle for these soiled memories,
left here navigating a world where i no longer even know which me is me

“one night, that’s all it takes”
except it wasn’t; again i say for YEARS i stayed
going ‘too far a single time’ doesn’t negate his common rage

anyways
i get you love him and his music but i don’t really care
he’s a darkness lurking waiting to manipulate the air
a shadow: stalking, smothering, secret-holding, thieving(,) *******
that last one’s for me; because i hate him, if you haven’t gathered

“it happened WHEN? wow, THAT LONG AGO? just get over it”
“there’s no need to keep living in the past”
“what a crazy *****”

i’m sorry, i can’t hear you, you’ve caught me at a real bad time
i’ve gotta do something about that dang machine again
all it seems to do these days is WHINE

here’s to him:
go ahead and tell your little friends how i'm the crazy one
but don't forget to mention all the ****** up **** you've ever done
i know what you think and say about me to your new girls—
—but how about you?
can’t unleash your feelings without revealing the ***** truth

what the ******* think you’re laughing at?
let’s give you something to cry about instead
can’t remember just whose side you’re on after i flip the switch and see that red
not talking violence, sorry, i tend to get a little heated
it’s this lack of closure, justice, resolution that i’m needing

he knows exactly what he did, he just won't admit it
he doesn't seem to like that i put him in this "tough" position
kind of ironic, don't you think? given the situation

i search for you in all the people that i meet
the echoes of our memories shuffling in the sheet

i look for you in the faces on the street
i ache for you in the songs that i sing

an out i didn't take
the memories unmade
a life we didn't live

he hurt me
but i hurt you
that's just the way it is

empty wine bottles in your room
when i wake up, sometimes,
i still reach for you

empty glass bottles
rattling around in the backseat
why do i still think of you