"Sometimes it’s not the fights that break you. Sometimes it’s not the calls at two am or how his parents hate you more than the neighbours who hang a confederate flag in their yard.
Sometimes it’s the kisses, the love you’s, the let’s go for a walk because I haven’t seen you all day’s. There’s this feeling that settles into your mind while you’re holding hands, a bitter taste in the back of your throat that stays until you cough up blood, until you push and push and break. You always knew you weren’t meant to be taken care of, and you always knew that the weak perished at the hands of the mighty, but you though, for a moment, you could pretend.
And it was a pretty lie, could’ve been beautiful, probably, but then it’s summer picnics, that smell so sweet you want to vomit, and you couldn’t take it anymore.
You can grab your ripped jeans out of the bins, and you can pull your dark red lipstick up from the corner of your room where you threw it after your first date. You can punch the wall until your knuckles are raw and bleeding, until it doesn’t hurt, and you can cuss and dirty up the mouth that used to kiss gently, but it doesn’t help.
You’re still the person who learnt how to play guitar sitting in his stupid treehouse, and you can almost feel his feet kicking yours softly under the table when you wouldn’t look at him, to let you know that, ‘hey, you. I’m still here.’ You look at the light blue sky and you see his eyes, but they weren’t blue. You can’t erase this. You cannot take it back.
This is who you are: built up, made whole. Broken.
This is who are aren’t: who you thought you wanted to be."