A poem.

[sandwitch]

This is very likely far from my best; it becomes more of a rant than a poem. But maybe that's alright.

TW: abuse in a relationship.

I nearly wrote a poem about birds to avoid writing a poem about myself. Birds like hearts, aflutter in ribcages- but my heart doesn’t really flutter anymore, which sounds very bitter-

-and is basically just calm instead.

I am fairly sure I have nerve damage of the soul. Paralysis of the heart. Whiplash of the softer emotions.

Unfortunately, the harder emotions have never really worked from me, which leaves me between a rock and hard place, which always sounds like a come-on.

So, anyway, as I recover from the car crash of our tragicomedy romance, hopping along on heart-crutches and poking at fictional things to try and inject some kind of pure distilled feeling into my veins (just say no) as I listen to my iPod on the bus and wonder why I’m not sad, I wonder if it’s permanent.

I think those metaphors up there imply that it’s permanent.

Of course, quite likely, I could have a miracle discovery. Look, I’m not stupid. Rather, I’m young, and I will, hopefully, have quite a lot of time in which to regain feeling.

I’m not stupid. I’m young, and I was dragged over the broken glass of an abusive relationship so much so that I refuse to use the word, the L-word, that didn’t ever happen, I refuse to scribble all over my nice poem with L-word this and L-word that, because if you use it and you abuse it like I did because you abused me and I was young--

Then I can’t be blamed for not feeling anything, not a single damned thing, except maybe wishing I had someone else to talk to besides a blank page and hoping I won’t have to make another excuse not to pick up the phone, hoping you don’t get drunk and make me feel sick by telling me you love me.

And I want to add an apology onto the end of this but I don’t think I will, because I have apologised enough when I shouldn’t have to. I have said I love you because you wanted to hear it, not because I wanted to say it. I will not be ambivalent in this poem.

I never said you were forgiven. I never said I wasn’t angry. So change. Change without me, because I’ve changed without you, and my goodbyes have been said; you’re begging on a dead line and I can’t hear you.

(This is a poem about birds).