Phantom

Why do you haunt me?
Like a phantom you return again & again to steal away my resolve.

You who can make my world feel so complete.
You who can make my world feel so hollow.

Why do I never know how to let you go?

Gone Girl

You still cling to me,
although tenuously,
in order to still have a connection.
You return when it is convenient for you,
to make sure you still can,
in case you want to return again in the future.

But you mistake my politeness as a welcome,
you do not realize that you have faded from my mind and heart,
and that only when you return do I even remember you exist.
You keep one foot in the door,
never noticing I don't live there anymore.

I am not the same girl you once knew.
I have grown & changed & become strong enough to realize how much better I am without you around.
You cannot break this heart again.
You cannot return to what once was.
You cannot know me anymore.

Do not confuse the fact that I wish you no ill will as me welcoming you home. This home is no longer yours and I have no room for you here.

Back Again

You were gone for so long
but now and then you come back.
As if taking my happiness in the past wasn't enough,
you've come to try to poach it away again.

But my heart no longer belongs to you
and the clever tricks & games you play have no effect on me anymore.
You come back to fill your own emptiness, the one that exists in you now.

But I cannot validate you anymore.
The time for that has passed.
I cannot provide the redemption you seek to atone for the sins of your past.
You come back to me to reassure yourself, to soothe your guilty heart.
But I am not your panacea for the wounds you have inflicted on yourself.

I have already given you the forgiveness you needed and I have moved on.
The cure for your guilt,
the thoughts that gnaw @ your bones,
is not found in me,
is not found in my words.

You come back time & time again,
to see if I am still here.
But I haven't been here in a long time.
You cannot find your salvation in me.

Foolish Heart

Oh foolish heart!
When will you ever learn?
That love is a fallacy,
a fantasy, a bedtime story.

Always hopeful,
you forget the tears I cried
when you were broken.
You want to believe in
the fairy tale of
happy ever after.

And you almost convince me
that the fairy tale might be real.

Elephant Graveyard

I have resigned myself to alone.
I know that I will crawl into an empty bed, night after night,
I will come home to an empty house,
greeted only by the shadows of my own self.
I will celebrate my joys alone,
I will cry on my own shoulder.
When I fall apart, no one will be there to catch me,
to pick up my pieces & make me whole.

I know who I am inside,
the dark, complicated girl,
the sadness inside that I ignore but that taints everything I do.
The sullen, quiet girl who worries too much about too many things,
who feels her own inadequacies so acutely.
The girl who so very much wants to be loved but who so very much fears it.
The hollow girl who has already had too much to bear.
The broken girl, the discarded girl, the girl no one wants.

I know who I am.
Under the veneer of slick, dry wit & a quick smile is the girl who is always a little bit apart from everyone.
The one who hangs back & never fully lets anyone in.
Being alone is easier when you don't feel lonely,
and you don't feel lonely if you never let anyone in.

So I know my place.
My place to exist in silent suffering.
The place where I am always alone.
My elephant graveyard.

Pretty Paper

Inside my heart
I keep hidden
The secrets that create me.
I bury them inside
And cover them with pretty paper.
I make myself palatable for the world to see.
Because the person I am under the shiny bows & witty humor
Is too dark & too wounded,
Too fragile, too afraid,
Too injured, too melancholy,
Too broken, and too destroyed
For anyone to see.

Tumble

I want to tumble into you
Into the warmth of your laugh
And let you unlock my secret mind.
I want to be open & let you see the person I am underneath the polished exterior.

To let you walk through the hidden corridors of my mind, letting you peruse the doorways inside. I crave to be understood & explored.

But he came first & destroyed the precious things inside. He left carnage behind.

So I'm locked up tight, deadbolted & secure.