Who I Am Now

Took a few months off

to settle into the process

of understanding how this happened.

Begged my parents to let me move home,

so I could feel less alone.

Fought the feeling to call you

to say that I still love you.

Don’t think you’d pick up anyway.

I started to wonder if maybe I’m better off dead

if this is going to be how my life plays out,

constantly built up and pushed down by you,

year after year, even when we have wedding rings and kids.

Every girl that you use from now on will hear about me.

You’ll tell them how guilty you are for hurting me,

and they’ll feel bad,

so they’ll give you sex and temporary bliss

until you get bored and hurt them too.

Now, I walk around with my head down,

too ashamed to look anyone in the eye

because I lost the light in mine for a less than average guy

who uses me to feel alive,

to convince himself that there’s good in him

when we both know he’s the devil in disguise.

I feel the least like myself more than ever,

changing identities over and over,

trying to find one that fits right.

But, my mistake of loving you

never washes off my skin

and my fears follow me to sleep,

dreaming of you murdering me.

Call my mom seven days a week

because I don’t want anyone else to have to tolerate me

and my tears, and my cries,

and my insecurities, and my victimization.

Random sobs pump out of my chest throughout the day,

stripping away every last piece of the cool me that I tried to be.

Trying to prove to myself that I can come out stronger with what you’ve done to me,

pulled back when my therapist said it takes seven tries to really leave an abuser, statistically.

Went to the nightclub in hopes that my soulmate would find me,

but no one ever chooses the girl with the heaviest baggage, do they?

Couldn’t write about my feelings for the longest time

because they jumpscared me to death,

dressed up as monsters,

hiding in my closet,

greeting me every time I opened the door,

teasing me for believing that you would change,

pointing their thin, bony fingers at my broken heart,

eating my soul until they’re full.

My friends talk me down ledges until I jump back up,

and I turn away from the pity in their eyes.

Everyone has such kind things to say about me,

and I don’t know why that’s not enough.

Didn’t think it was possible to love you and hate you all at once.

Hoping to see you in Hell but still believing in our heaven.

Maybe I’m not as sweet as they say.

How did I get here anyway?

Who I am now is not who I planned on being.

An emotional wreck, a pile of dirty laundry on the floor,

moving through life being remote controlled by you, all my potential falling through.

How do I get it back?

Quit my job,

rely on alcohol,

put up a facade,

curl into my chest,

vow to never love again,

and end up being the oddball.

Watch everyone around me marry good men and have kids,

while I stay stuck in my emptiness.

Thinking I should try more to be less pathetic.

I am the love of your life

but it’s sinking in that you are not mine

because we both know

everything I gave to you,

every dollar I spent,

every relationship I bent,

every law I outran,

every pit in the sand,

I did it all for you.

I did it all to be with you.

And you watched me with poisonous intentions,

getting off on the feeling of being loved by a girl like me,

so naive and willing to believe

that you are an angel

when all you do is spill blood, numb to emotion.

You lock me up in the asylum and study my ways,

trying to learn how to have a heart,

but not passing the test,

so you abandon the ship

and I go down with it,

my dying wish being that you’ll come to save me.

I wish someone would save me.

Your future is clear

because you’ll do anything to fake a happy ending,

but I want something real

that I’m afraid I’ll never find.

I can’t imagine anyone would adore someone like me

who hesitates to speak,

chases dreams in her sleep,

likes to sit on the couch and read,

wants attention and has needs,

and wants a boy whose obsessed with me,

just like I was so obsessed with you,

pulling you back when you tried to slip away,

running like water down the shore.

Our footprints used to follow each other,

now mine just search for yours.

Maybe one day, you’ll explain your side.

Maybe one day, I won’t need to hear it.

I hope one day, I don’t love you at all.

The pain leaves grill marks on my essence

and my ghosts look so old,

wrinkled skin and dried out eyes

from crying teardrops that hold memories of us

dancing in Omaha,

saying goodbye,

cooking in the kitchen,

driving in the rain,

being shy on our first date,

dressed up at prom,

kissing at sunset,

hugging at the airport,

fighting in your bedroom,

watching movies,

sneaking into the middle school park,

choosing names for our kids,

being full at a food truck,

loving each other like the rest of the world didn’t exist,

like we were the last two alive in an apocalypse.

Do you lose your breath

when you remember how much you love me?

Do you breakdown

right before you go to bed?

Hating yourself once more

for being the worst man alive,

unable to reach heights,

incapable of genuinity.

When you get married,

cheat on your wife, please,

to ease my insanity.

Do you chug glass after glass

of Coke and Whiskey

to erase the sweet images of sweet me

promising every inch of myself to you?

Every haunting kiss,

the brush of my lips on your chest tattoo.

The way my hair falls over my shoulders,

your favorite positions,

my laugh ringing in echoes of our love songs

playing on the radio,

forcing you to listen

because you can’t change the station

when you’re in the backseat,

thrown into a vortex,

another universe where you were good to me.

If this ends in fairness

then I will get the karma I deserve

and your dying thought will be me, smiling, saying “I love you.”