Savior Complex

When we broke up, I fell apart. I heard when that happens, you should let the pieces fall away and leave them on the floor for a little while, until you can be sure of which ones you can pick back up and which ones can stay. But I didn’t want to break up and I didn’t want to feel broken so I asked you to stay. I could pick my pieces up off the ground and move my heart back in with you. You were tired of the way I took up space but at least I asked. I can say now that I have no regrets about how we ended. Except for the length of time I let you treat me the way you treat yourself. All of the times I let you lie to me, all of the times I let you justify every way you ever hurt me, all of the times I let you tell me I was the burden. I don’t blame you but I hate you a little. I think you deserve that. I think that if you ever tried coming back, I would hate you more. I still think about it anyway so I can be prepared just in case. I would ask you: how could you do this to me? but I don’t really care anymore. Not sure any answer would satisfy what I’m looking for. Not sure I’m looking for anything at all except maybe my own apology. Not sure I can give myself one without falling apart. Then again, maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. My pieces will fall away and I’ll leave them on the floor for a little while, until I can be sure of which ones I can pick back up and which ones can stay- 

                                       you can stay. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In the Absence of Walls

I visited his late grandmother’s house in December, met his mom for the first time, and played cards on the wooden dining room table while sipping on microwaved mint tea. The house sat on the bottom of a hill, a small, one story ranch style with uncomplicated rooflines. He took me through the back entrance, pushing past a sliding glass door. It was a familiar habit of his, and for the first time I was a part of it. The house bordered a golf course that overlooked the city at the thirteenth hole. After brief hello’s and it’s nice to finally meet you’s we walked it by ourselves, the three of us, clad in worn coats and shy boots that followed the trails of conversation. We smiled quietly as leaves and decay cried under us, the lazy descent of the sun tracking our movements without offering warmth. I held my breath instead of saying the wrong thing. Hopeful at first, always hopeful, until it started to rain.  The walls of the house were much like any other: colored, cream, and cracking...
Read more

Car-Mine, All Mine

He smiles when I cry. A soft one, before he embraces me.  Like he just needed to observe the way the emotion  changes my features.  Soak up the hopelessness shimmering in my eyes  and grab me just before  I can suffocate on my own breathless oxygen.  He likes to feel like he is saving me.  Sometimes he says something terrible  just to watch me crumble  and then be the one to pick me up. His vocabulary consists of: “Why do you always pick a fight” ’s and “You never believe me anymore, Carmine” ’s He tells me that I look beautiful when I cry, and I realize that he thinks this makes up for it.  That he thinks I want to feel beautiful as I fall apart.  He's a romantic and a manipulator.  I let him be both. Mostly because I don’t know how to play victim as well  as he does.  “Do you even notice all the things I do for you?” He threatens to leave me.  I break down and cry.  “Oh Car-Mine, you’re all mine,” he sooth...
Read more

a heart for a heart

and maybe that’s what it was I could never love you enough- not all of you. I was careful to avoid the sharp pieces of your personality and yet not careful enough. You pierced my skin with  every embrace and I grew used to pain, started piercing you back because it was like this you taught  me how to love. So, eventually, I embraced all of you while resenting those parts that didn’t hurt me and when I found a blade of my  own, I stuck it in the soft skin  between your chest and jaw so all of you could bleed and look just as red as me.
Read more