To the two boys who think I owe them something.
My heart doesn't belong to either of you,
and your spindly fingers clenching it
don't look enough like ribbon
to fool me into thinking that
my love is a gift to you.
To the two of you,
so willing to give me
your monthly allowances of text messages
yet not your loyalty.
For thinking that an "honest" apology
fixes me having to question why
just me was never good enough
for either of you.
You were both greedy,
you always wanted more.
Now run free and fill your stomach with all the flavours that will burn your taste buds and scorch your tongue.
To both of you for being willing enough to open my box with a key that I never gave you,
rifle through my thoughts and feelings,
and not even open your ears to them,
leaving the lid off
and the contents strewn across your floor.
For offering to help me pick them back up again,
but only because my "small, little arms" are not strong enough to carry my own weight that I've carried for
fifteen years on my own.
Here's to both of you for putting me down about being small.
That is NOT my fault.
I have a mighty big cathedral for a heart and a generous brain
and that's all within 5"2.
It doesn't make you any bigger than me
(metaphorically).
Your few feet advantage doesn't give you
the power above me,
even if you can see the roots of my hair in more detail
than you would ever care to observe
the fault lines of my cracked smile.
Boys are being taught that
to love me
is to fix me,
that I am some kind of messy enigma,
a project, a goal.
I'm just a girl with a family, a girl with a head, with a spiders web of veins and a lifetime of lessons that I'm opening my arms and my heart to.
You mistake yourself for a lesson,
when I'm fully qualified to teach myself.

You diagnose yourselves
as "depressed".
Mental illness is not an accessory,
nor a quirk to make you seem more vulnerable to me.
Don't brandish it in the air,
it is not a weapon against me.
It doesn't make you adorable,
or some kind of cuddly bear boy.
Everything that's
"killing you"
is just as toxic to me.
You set my skin into blue flames
because I won't give myself to you.
No,
no,
no.
I'm tangled in my rejection,
and it thickens.
I can't be with you out of pity.
My guilt, raging deep within my bowels,
marching violently through my organs,
exploding into a supernova of
thinking that love and guilt are almost the same thing.
"I'll do anything",
I don't want anything from you.
"I'll write you a poem because I know how much you love that."
I also love being respected but neither of you ever gave me that.
My craft is not a tool of trickery,
and your words not a trance.
"I'm not like him".
But you still act like my skin is a carpet to your home,
and you walk across it with muddy boots.

You think you're a blanket to keep me warm,
but you ended up suffocating me.
To the boys who think I owe you them something,
go home.

Women
Don't owe me
Anything
Nothing
At all.