I am not the same girl you fell in love with. She is gone.
I think that when you left I learned how to turn my sadness into anger and my anger into regret.
I handled your absence with sharp razor blades and drowned myself in to glass bottles to avoid confronting the empty side of my bed.
The flowers you bought me still stand on my dresser as wilted and as dead as I feel.
It took me months to stop wearing my promise ring you gave to me because taking it off meant moving on and I just wasn’t ready.
But what I am ready for is for my heart to stop hammering each time I hear your name because just the sound of your name brings back tsunamis of memories that I tried to burn. But my mind won’t let those ashes blow away with the flick of a cigarette.
And I know I shouldn’t miss you yet my nights still revolve around you and I cry into the pillow that somehow still smells like you.
I thought you said we’d spend the rest of our lives together but that was just another lie you told me, just like I love you.
Because if you loved me my name wouldn’t be something you yelled but maybe something you’d whisper in my ear. And if I knew what safety looked like I wouldn’t spend my time in you embrace, I’d be running in the other direction, but you don’t get a safety manual with love.
I spent two years walking on eggshells and dodging your fists that weren’t always aimed at me but felt all the same.
Since when did I become okay with being half loved by someone I can’t even look in the eyes?
This girl you had loved is not the same girl you left. She is broken.