i.
I do not hate men. I do not rue the day you were born. I do not sit with my friends and think of ways to hurt you back. I do not egg your car or sign you up for spam mailing lists. I do not fantasize of casting a hex on you. I do not ruminate the many ways in which I want you to fail. I do not stay awake at night wondering how you can be so careless with another person’s beating heart. I especially do not miss you.

ii.
All the Bell Hooks in the world could not save you now. All the palo santo and sage can’t undo what you’ve done. All the quasi therapy speak of intentionality and avoidant attachment won’t turn back the clock. All the protests you attend or statistics you repost cannot scrub away your sins. Who are you without an audience? Who are you in the dark? Oh, how well I know you now.

iii.
I liked all that you said before, but for your information, you lied.
So, save your words or swallow them. I no longer want to be known by you. You’re nothing but a lost thing. Honorless, a mercenary, a slave to those intrusive thoughts. A performer, an actor, a dancing monkey and I am your ***** grinder.

i wish i had never met you
i don’t think there was any good reason behind it
i think it was an accident
like the gods got distracted + when they looked back again we had crashed into each other + it was too late
the damage was done + we had met
i don’t think it was a good lesson or that it made me tougher or a better person
i think it just became part of the reason i’m not the same anymore
the reason i’m so closed off, the reason i don’t trust people the way i used to
i don’t think we were supposed to meet
i think it was a complete misfortune
sometimes i think about the day that it happened + how one minor decision could have stopped the entire thing
because if we had never met i would still be all the good parts of me
and there would be a few less parts that needed fixing
and i would still go for walks by the river but you wouldn’t enter my thoughts
and i would still have these friends but we would not reflect on how broken i was when you were a part of my life
what doesn’t **** you makes you strong sure, but i was strong anyway
and the time i spent with you is dead to me
i wish i had never met you
i wish the gods had been paying attention
it was an accident that wasn’t waiting to happen
a calamity
a catastrophe
a mistake

number one. you exist. you can’t do anything about it.
number two. my love is peace, so be that or be nothing.
number three. balance is an abstract concept I never understood. The devil dances in me.
number four. whoever abandoned you there in the middle of the ocean, has no right to know how you made it back to the shore.
number five. It is all in gods timing.
number six. Say something nice to me.
number seven. When I am in pain, I will pray for you.
number eight. If you sit still, you rot. do not disagree.
number nine. there is no fury like a woman scorned.
number ten. Let go or be dragged.

all of this anger was once love you know
none of this fate was deserved
I didn’t realise I had to be brave and then brave again and again and again and then actually
for the rest of my god ******
life

Most men will never be happy and that is what they deserve  
I found peace in stillness
I stopped living for the temporary people
I realized my mum was trying her best too
I let go of the grudges
I stopped sabotaging my own life
I found out I always deserved better

my heart has its own memory and i have forgotten nothing
lord, i worry that love is not more than violence
i hate to wait for you unbearably and breadcrumbs will always look like a feast to a woman starved of affection
i’m learning love as an act of mercy I’m learning love as an act of sacrifice
maybe in another universe we didn’t let go of each other
maybe in another universe you chose me
maybe my worst sin is that i have destroyed and betrayed myself for nothing

One day when the oceans turn to ice
Ask me the mistakes I have made
One day when the sky is on fire
Ask me if what I have done in my life has been good.
Some have crept and crawled and slithered their way in and out, some have arrived softly and quietly and stayed.
Ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made me into. I’ve fallen in and out of love so much that now my hands are libraries of all the people they have touched.
What the ocean says, that’s what I say.