Did you love me in a past life?
Is that why you made a pact with me
to conjoin this time in a karmic unraveling?

What did you intend to learn from me?
Our energetic ties implied we should have known
how this would all end;
I felt it in the beginning,
that this might not be sustainable,
but I persisted and so did you,
dragging our feet into the trenches.

Did you care what the end result would be?
Was it satisfying enough to watch the soft shell
surrounding us crack?

I'd be such a good girl for you,
making sure to cram and compartmentalize every piece of me
into whatever shape you'd prefer;
I've never known any better.
It's what I've always been told.

If I'm not here to make you happy,
then what is my purpose?
I've never known to take care of myself,
but I would take care of you in a heartbeat.

I don't know how to stop,
I don't know how to love correctly,
and I definitely don't know how to be loved.

If I keep giving,
what does it mean if you give back?
I think I'd feel nauseated knowing
you spent so much energy into me.
I'm not your sink, I'm the output source
and I'd never let it be the other way around.

Have you ever woken up inside a flashback?
Do you know how it feels to be pushed down into your own body after years of being pulled apart?

I awoke many times in a haze,
wondering what year it was;
months ago I finally came to and I thought I was trapped in 2014
and instead of waking to go to school,
like I was so convinced of,
I went to work and went through the motions of something I somehow knew all too well.

How did I go so many years in this separation of self?
I awoke to all of this abundance and responsibility I don't remember creating.
I could have cried out screams of mercy
for whatever stole all these years
to give them back.

I typed away at my computer,
but it all felt so foreign.
I was supposed to be in high school;
I'm supposed to be myself.

I've awoken many times in absolute fear,
not even sure who I am,
where I am,
what time period I'm in.
It's terrifying and I'm so tired of being ripped apart from reality like this.

Have you ever been consumed by a flashback?
Hurled and spit out by the jaws of the past
and regurgitated into the present?
I've never understood why it has to keep happening.

I am tired of living in waking memory;
I want this tortuous cycle to end.

Was I ever really his favorite?
From the words, he spilled,
I would have been inclined to believe it,
but his actions say otherwise.

Was I ever anyone's favorite?
I've been chronically revered but overlooked at the same time.
They spoke so highly of me, for someone so apt to abandon at a moment's notice.

I couldn't imagine him willing to take the time to get to know me,
and yet I expended my energy to know him;
it's funny,
to think I vowed my love to someone so distant.

I have never been the favorite,
I have always been the connecting piece from one person to another,
leading them to each other like a sheep dog with its flock;
I have always been alone,
One way or another.

In the early hours of the morning,
you asked me to marry you;
I pushed it off, taking it as a joke,
but you leapt up from our bed anyway,
and I protested, saying there were no rings in sight,
and yet, you wrapped paper, so delicately, into a ring for me.

From the dim-lit room,
I saw you kneel on one knee to ask me.
I swore you were mocking me,
but you persisted that we elope,
and even then I couldn't take you at your word.

Did you really love me like that?
And if so, why did you leave?

If I have the energy to heal,
then do I have the energy to expend?
To let myself try to love again?

Is it wise to take the little bit I have
And turn it to another and not myself?
Shouldn't I have learned by now?

Why am I not more reserved?
This energy isn't truly in abundance,
and would it not be selfish to think the small amount I have to give is enough for someone else?
It is barely enough for me.

This heart is so foolish,
and I have yet to learn how to tame her rash desires;
I wish she knew to quiet down.

Tiny porcelain masks;
why not see what happens when you watch them fall?

Look at how
fragile and delicate they are,
each one hand-crafted to hide away
life's torments.

Be honest with yourself,
and retire them
before they crack against your own will.

People keep trying to tell me that it wasn't real love,
and I know how wrong they are when they say it;
people don't want to face the idea that a bad person is capable of love,
but they are,
and a lot of bad people have loved me.

I always took to doubting myself
and so it was no surprise I did
again and again and again
when you had me under your fingertips.

That night I finally saw you,
after months of being apart,
you hoisted me up on your bed
and the look in your eyes seemed so foreign;
there was a hunger there I had never seen before.

I was a bit uncomfortable,
but I missed you so much I didn't care
to think on it further;
but your touch was different too,
and for a split second, I thought,
I'd almost jolt up and leave.

It was so bizarre to me,
you used to be so scared to have me to yourself,
and all of a sudden your hands
were no longer afraid, and,
your grip was a bit stronger than before;
I should have known something was wrong.

This was the closest I had ever come to
feeling like your prey,
and it wasn't right;
every other time you held me,
I could feel the restraint,
that you had chosen a gentle touch
instead of being so demanding,
and I thought that meant you loved me enough
to be delicate.

Was that the case?
Why, now, were you able to be different?
A mechanism like that shouldn't be so easy to switch on and off.

What happened?
Was it becoming too difficult to keep up your facade?
Did you even realize you didn't change back for me?
Why do I always doubt myself?

What did that look mean
when you glanced at me like that?

Yes, it was true,
another person's lips had grazed mine
when you left me the first time,
and now that you'd come back,
you seemed to know something I didn't.

I hadn't lied
when I told you that
your lips felt right against my own
and his smokey breath did not,
and then the secret you had held was revealed
only slightly, of course,
and I didn't even notice.

When I told you that
I had wished I was kissing you instead,
what I had first thought was a look of love
was actually your look of embarrassment and shame
and this was because, you too, were a man with a smokey breath,
leaving imprints of your lips on another's
long before we had parted ways.

So, it wasn't her who kissed you first;
you filthy little liar,
and you were starting to feel bad
about what you had done.

I was none the wiser,
and sympathized with you,
thinking you too had felt like me,
a big misunderstanding between two people
and that you'd come back to me
because you realized my lips were better than another's,
not that you liked the idea
of getting away with infidelity
and then rushing back into my arms.

I always missed these signs,
and it eats away at me now
when I think about how many
times I should have known.