And then suddenly I’m right back here where I started. At the point where I hurt myself to stop myself from hurting. The cuts are not deep but they are frequent and now they’re just thin red burns of focus and clarity on the inside of my wrist.
Oh people write so much prose about this. So much poetry and so many songs and running mascara and dark eyeshadow so you think you’d know if you saw someone like that. You’d be able to tell. But most people can’t because people only know what they want to know. Milk white skin and blood red scars but you’re all still mirror mirror on the wall because you can’t see me through what I show you, and all I’ll show you is what you want to see.
Maybe that’s what I’m left with. The rain outside is stopping. The park is 30 minutes away. People get raped in the park, I hear. It’s already dark outside. But there is this overwhelming urge to walk. To walk away the bruises on my feet from the hundreds of times I’ve come running back to your door. To walk away, away, away from you this time. Into the dark, into the black, into the heavy bending trees and the biting autumn chill and never turn around. Better the devil you know. Better the loneliness. Better what you’re used to.
I know you’re talking about her to make me jealous. But darling I cannot. I don’t have it in me anymore. I am exhausted. I just give and give and give and I will entertain your every drunken 4am call just like I have with all the others because I give and give in the hopes that all this one day will mean something to someone. Someday the next drunken half-stranger at my door will look at me through blurry eyes and realize I am nothing but tired and drained and still giving, giving, gone, until there’s nothing left.
Maybe you already know. Maybe they all knew. They just never knew how to give back to someone with a total lack of self-preservation. What do you give to someone who has given you everything? The easy answer is that you give back everything in return. The reality of it is that everything is a lot to handle; so they take what they want and run.
I should be used to this. I should be used to handing him over after he’s done with me and saying to her “Here. you can have him now. I fixed him.” and watch them walk away. Take what you want and go. I should be used to unravelling the threads of me to sew back the pieces of you.
the rain is back and I still want to walk. to abuse myself because I don’t deserve anything more. I don’t want anything more. If you must use me, use me up and leave. Don’t drag it out like this. I’m tired. I’m empty. You’ve all scraped me raw. Let me heal the way I need to and when you see the cuts don’t pretend that you care, don’t pretend you can handle it, because then I’ll go and believe you and it’ll break my heart because I know you don’t. You can’t. You never will.