i hope

Wishing for other people to be miserable won’t make me any happier.
But I’m nothing if not a trier.

I hope every time you look up and see a beautiful cloudy sky, or you watch a sunset, or you see a contrail streak across the blue – I hope you see me. There by your side, with my weather book, quickly looking up the classifications to check if I was right. Kissing you if I was. Kissing you anyway if I wasn’t.

I hope you can’t hear Taylor Swift without seeing me dance around our living room in your shirt and my underwear. I hope you see my face when you see hers. I hope you can never erase that image from your mind. I hope you have to skip the song or change the radio channel.

I hope going to the beach on stormy days brings back memories of Lyme Regis. I hope you taste Cornish Rattler and remember the night we skipped along the beach singing Coldplay to the stars. Amaretto burning on our tongues.

I hope every pair of blue eyes you gaze into pale in comparison to the ocean deep, golden-flecked, vast expanse of mine.

I hope you can’t see a pair of cowboy boots without thinking of the summers I spent never taking mine off. Summer dresses, skinny jeans, tight little skirts, nothing at all, always paired with my cowboy boots. I hope you remember the look of horror on my face as I hurled them across the room at you. One by one.

I hope you can’t go on a long run without remembering every run we had together. In the rain, side by side, stride for stride. Matching each other’s pace.

I hope you can’t watch i-robot, because it reminds you that it was playing in the background the night we both had sex for the first time. I hope you can’t unsee my i heart NY t-shirt, and the sight of my face as we came at the same time as each other.

I hope you do. Because I can’t unsee you too.

For me,
it’s plaid shirts and skinny jeans. Paolo Nutini songs and Dr Who references. The All-American Rejects and Adele. I still remember the gait of your walk, the flop of your boyband hair, the freckles on your shoulders constellations to me. Everything Everything’s first album. Then their second. The smell of your cologne.

It hurts, because I can’t unsee or undo any of it.
It’s on repeat in my head.
Like a broken cassette.
But the music is familiar,
and I’m not ready to stop listening just yet.

interlude / interruption

i watch teen romance
because i mourn the loss of an adolescence
i didn’t have
whilst i was busying trying to prove something
to somebody
i didn’t need
somebody who wasn’t good enough for me
even before i saw the contents of his laptop
is it possible to miss something you never had?
an idea of what might’ve been, but never quite was?
i miss awkwardly catching someone’s hand
and misplaced, mistimed kisses
hearts beating fast
first touches
drinking too much and making poor decisions
easy, naive heartache
clean breaks
with soft landings
not blood boiling, fists balled, skin crawling, retching fear.

there was a brief period at sixteen
an interlude
from mental illness
from the bird-cage where i was
hostage to compulsion
for too long

an interlude
where
for the blink of an eye
i was okay
i laughed, drank, flirted, played the sixteen year old
and as i climbed atop my pedestal
finally taking centre stage for the young protagonist i’d dreamt of whilst my brain had been wrapped in wires,
i fell
into your arms
and into the fire.

for a while i thought you’d saved me
oh knight in shining converse
but you’d done nothing more
than interrupt me
from saving myself

a 7 year interlude
of something i never deserved.

stop blaming women for how you chose to mistreat them

i saw the title quote embroidered on @kingsophiesworld instagram page. it struck a chord with me. and i started to write. if it sounds like i’m still hurting, it’s because i am.

do not blame me for how you chose to mistreat me.
i was crazy, obsessive, up-tight, emotional, needy.
or maybe you were a disloyal, manipulative, disingenuous, pathological liar? a using, cheating narcissist?

the words that came out of your mouth were
“this is your problem. the way you have reacted is your fault, not mine”

even my “friends” protected your behaviour. because you were the good guy. the sensitive one. “you totally over-reacted to the way he behaved.”

no.
you lied.
repeatedly.
to my face.
paraded her around in front of me a week after we’d broken up, like a fucking trophy and then lied. said “no she has a boyfriend” and “she’s staying in my spare room”.

YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A SPARE ROOM.

you then pretended like i’d made that part up. said “why would I say that, my new house doesn’t have a spare room?”

WELL YOU’VE SUMMARISED MY BONE OF CONTENTION PERFECTLY THERE.

but no, you’re right, it was my fault.

you played the boyfriend card very well. you must be proud.
taking me out for dinner.
cooking for me.
inviting me round spontaneously but telling me i didn’t need to bother getting ready because i was beautiful in my leggings and big jumper.
telling me you missed me.
letting me cook for you.
watching harry potter with me.

but then,

refusing to show affection in public.
because you’re not
that type of person.
well, you were
that type of person
a week later when you couldn’t keep your hands off her.
i expect you didn’t think your boyfriend game would be so effective.

but sure. it was my fault for falling for it. my fault that i thought you cared. my bad. wrong end of the stick. crossed wires.

i was just tiding you over, wasn’t i? i walked straight into your trap and all you wanted was someone to fuck until you made the move on the girl you really wanted. isn’t she lucky.

don’t make me collateral damage in your endless quest to massage your augmented ego.

i should’ve known,
the moment
the word
“fuckable”
fell
from
your
lips
thinly veiled as a compliment.

Do not blame me
for how you chose
to mistreat me.

things other people have said about my body

I compiled a list. Of things I can remember being said about my body. It’s not an exhaustive list, of course. (And originally I had done a handy coloured-coded key to go with it, but sadly I’ve not yet mastered colour formatting on this thing.)

You should be a model with a body like that.
If I were you, I wouldn’t wear baggy clothes like those.
You can’t talk. You’re skinny.
You’re “the skinny one”.
Why can’t you just eat more?
I’d fuck that.
Corrr – legs on that!
Oi oi, sexy!
Why didn’t you wear something tighter, to show off your body then?
You look very….fuckable.
Your body is ridiculous.
Your arse is amazing.
I like it when you wear tiny little gym shorts.
Pig tails are so fucking sexy. That little school girl look.
You’ve got nothing to worry about, you’re tiny.
Anorexic bitch!
Skinny cow!
Do you just not eat?
You look like a squirrel.
Slutty giraffe-esque housemate.
Legs on that.
You were the hot, angry new teacher.
Oh shut up, you’re skinny.
Look who’s got boobs now. Careful, the boys will be throwing things down your cleavage soon too!
You’re fit.
Yeah, you look nice.
That arse!
Well, you don’t have any problem attracting male attention, do you?
You look healthy*
*read “like you’ve put on weight”.

It upsets me that I know how many of those comments were made by family members, close friends or even intimate partners.

At what point do we become saturated with what we hear being said about us? About our bodies? I would like to add that at no point when any of these comments were made had I asked somebody to openly pass judgement about my body. I’m sure I’m not alone. These comment range from when I was about 13/14 to very recently. They served to teach me that my body is not my own. My body was for other people’s satisfaction, in one way or another. And more so that those comments were to be tolerated, like some sort of rent to pay for existing in a young female body.

I’m a machine, not a fucking ornament.

midnight phonecall in the distant future

he’s crying. it’s a number i don’t recognise because he’s changed phones and ignored me for so long.

i recognise his voice though, as soon as he starts talking through his sobs. he’s not exactly saying sorry. he’s mostly begging for forgiveness.

because after 14 years, it’s dawned on him. what he did. he’s wracked with guilt and he’s paranoid. he wants me to promise not to say anything.

he wants me to tell him he’s a good person.

i sigh. because i really. don’t. have the patience for it.

i got over it several years ago.
and i hang up.
without saying a word.

ashamed

i am ashamed
that i cared so much about someone

who cared so little.

i am ashamed that i put my entire self-worth in his hands
and that i was naive enough to be shocked when

he broke it.

shattered it into tiny little pieces and then stepped back as if to say

what did you do that for?
look what you’ve done now.
clean it up then.

i thought i desperately needed his confirmation
but what i really needed

was my own.

i owed him
absolutely
nothing

and somehow, i still ended up with a debt to pay