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Writer's pictureYours Truly

Ten

Updated: Oct 16, 2018



~


By my standards,

he is a ten.


I'm sure you're

laughing right now--

"ooohhhh, she think's

he's a ten"--

but that's not

what I mean.


What I am trying to say is that,

on a scale from one to ten,

one being indicative of

experiencing little to no pain

and ten being indicative of

experiencing a pain whose presence

is capable of knocking the wind

straight out of me--

a pain that I do not

dare to fathom

for fear of prolonging it--

he was a hurricane.


My hurricane.


The eye of the storm,

his aloof ignorance

paralleled against the

violently cyclonic nature

of this heartache--

cacophonic in its impact

and blasphemous in

every context of the word

Love.


I don't think

getting caught in the rain

has ever hurt quite this much.


Yet,

I surrender to this hurt

the way the sea surrenders

to the Almighty Poseidon;

the way my feet surrender

to the rocks

tied round my ankles;

the way my soul surrenders

to its contusions

(so is a casualty

of a broken heart).


Still,

I imagine what it would be

like to kiss him

when I wake up in

the middle of the night,

lucid dreaming and

shivering against the bed sheets

(must be hypothermia,

I think;

the coldness of his

absence settling among the

loneliest parts of me).


I try to remind myself

that he was never

any happy ending of mine--

just an ending.

And something tells me

kissing him would feel

a little less

like thimbles

and a little more

like sewing needles.


After all,

he always did have

a way of silencing me,

my lips stitched together

into the most morbid

of embroideries.


Because god forbid

you dare question

a tempest--

even when he has

left you

to stew in your

own ruin--

for fear of provoking

his stormy wrath.


Part of me

has always been afraid

of him,

you know

Looking back now,

that should have been

my first indication

that I had been entertaining

an abusive relationship.


No,

he never laid a hand

on me.


But

I was terrified that

there would come a day

when he would eventually snap.


I can envision it--

ribs crack like lightning;

bruises congealing beneath

my eyes like grape jelly;

fingerprints seared

across my cheek;

my head held underwater,

until I've stopped

breathing altogether.


Of course, there exists

more than one way

to destroy a person,

though he will claim

that he has done nothing

to wrong me.


Surely,

he would tell me that I am just reading

too much into things.


S'pose it's your turn then,

darling:


Trace the brailed veins

of my shattered heart,

and feel all the ways

you have broken me so.


Let your eyes flit

across the expanse

of these water-logged stanzas--

tell me,

does the poetry not speak

for itself?


Or does my drowning not suffice?

 

Image Source:

Lana Del Rey Blue Jeans music video gif (n.d.). [image] Available at: https://www.bustle.com/articles/23747-19-things-youll-find-in-any-lana-del-rey-music-video-from-west-coast-to-blue [Accessed 7 Oct. 2018].

 
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