remember how you taught me
that pain is proof of my worth?
i always thought it was silly,
but here i am,
one year later,
believing your twisted ideology:
love can only be earned through loss,
pain is the measure of success.
but i’m still here waiting
for my scars to mean something.
i miss that way you made me feel,
the rush,
the chaos,
the fall.
even now i crave the fleeting parts of myself
that fell apart when you touched them,
that frantic, beautiful madness
that kept me gasping for more
even when it left me broken.
because i was yours.
i know i know
it’s all my fault.
maybe if i wasn’t so ******* scared,
scared of letting you know me,
i would’ve stayed.
but then i remember september,
i hope you do too,
because it just proves that we’re unhealthy.
we made each other so depressed.
i think i keep writing about you
because no one
will ever know me like you did,
because i won’t let them.
but that makes me idolize you,
or something.
i should see a therapist.
my summer was fine until you interrupted it!
god, i just want to stop,
stop thinking about you
because i don’t even like you anymore.
things ain’t what they used to be.

i know she told you she loves you
i see it in the shimmer of your eyes.
you think of
running your hands through her hair
and galaxies start expanding
in your pupils
i know this because
i wore that same look
when i thought of you,
when i traded my mind for a brothel,
bartered pieces of my soul
to fit inside your mold

you come to me,
your voice laced with reverence,
and recount to me how beautiful she is
while I'm still intoxicated by that
fleeting summer day
you called me by the same

see, i could fracture myself and
reshape my whole body,
rewire the circuits in my brain and
become a composite
of everyone you’ve ever loved
but i could never
be new to you again.
i know you crave what’s untouched,
and I'm starting to decay.

if i could just twist back time
i wouldn’t taste your love again,
but stand outside this brothel,
neon lights flickering like dying stars,
and drag myself away

I've always known-
if it had been different,
if you ever had been capable
of loving me the way
i broke myself to deserve
i wouldn’t have reduced myself to dust
for a molecule of your affection

i was just a number.
i think she is too.
but if she’s the one who remakes you,
while I’m left here
alone in this labyrinthine hell-house,
I’ll sink into
the darkest caverns of myself.

There's still an imprint of
your hand on my face,
from the day you first struck me-
a love story between
paper skin and
iron fists.
It's been long since the redness faded
(long, not gone)
a bruise visible to not another soul
but mine.
𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘋𝘐𝘋 𝘛𝘏𝘐𝘚.

It smiles back in pictures
mocks me in mirrors
follows me on the street.
You created the mark
but I gave it a life,
a name- a structure
and decorated it with my self worth.

Bruised knuckles smeared in betrayal
𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘶𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘸
Snake infested waters
𝘐 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘥𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘦𝘥.