I have no clue where I'm going to leave you.
I have no clue where I'm going to leave you. (DV, SA, fawning)
I don't know where I'll be when my hand lets go of yours. The weight of you has been my anchor for so long. I'm the one holding on, because I'd rather you stayed, even if the current you has me completely out of sight. You're still my favourite witness.
I talk about you as though you loved me, but I don't even think you ever saw me. You poured acid onto my raw, scraped skin, and that made me feel real. I was exposed and vulnerable in a way I couldn't be anywhere else. I couldn't tell, but when you undressed me and forced me open, it felt like I had. I didn't even have to allow it, so I wasn't breaking any rules. With you, my pain felt real, and I liked tempting fate as though my life wasn't already on the line outside of you.
As shameful as it might be, I wanted you to do worse. I thought of asking you, so many times, to pull my body apart and strip me down to my bones. I had nothing truer to give to anyone. My submission to you, my pain, anger, and fear were honest and raw. I hate that I'm still thinking about you ten years later, numb and exposed, sitting on my adult bed in the house I haven't left yet. I still want you to hold me, to unearth it again.
I think that's why it's so hard to talk about you. I've made you into something that only I understand.
That resident version of you is my biggest critic. I take up too much space, I'm embarassing. I hate my body when I think of you. I look at it, and I feel naive. I still try to live up to your lust, to justify what ultimately happened. I want to be a victim you don't regret, because I feel pathetic and desperate otherwise. I don't want to disgust you, because that would hurt. I'd be the failure you learned to ignore.
I have nothing else but my pain to give you. And you knew that. You wanted my heartbreak to be yours, and I felt it, deeply. You made me into an outlet. My tender, reactive skin made you feel powerful. I didn't have anything else. I couldn't manage affection, but my absent body could be yours. Your failed attempts to kiss my lips terrified me. My refusal made you so angry. You decorated my body with bruises.
Time has passed since then. I tried to stay pretty, thin, shy. And I've failed. I'm loud with too many thoughts, curves that perplex me, and a face I barely see myself in.
And I have nothing to give anyone who genuinely loves me. I'll hold onto your memory to remind me that I did, once.
He is a place I go back to. I built him, and I made an altar of our own wreckage. I love him because I made him. Otherwise, he is just a boy who happened to grab me while he was grasping for air.