black list

i could name you all,
you know?

i could write your names out right now
for the whole world to see
to shame
i could do it
you know?

so why don’t i?

why do i sit here carrying the shame of you,
and you
and you
and you?

you, who knew i’d said no, twice, and continued.

you, who knew what i’d seen, and that i should’ve gone to the police.

you, who gaslit me for years, taught me i was crazy, losing my mind.

you, who emotionally blackmailed me into thinking it was my fault for your wrong doings.

so why don’t i?

why don’t i make a list?
a black list.
of names.
to warn other women.
so maybe they don’t have to go through what i went through.

and the fact that i don’t?
does that make me complicit?
does it make me a coward?

or have i learnt that nobody will believe me either way?

because –
no, not him, he wouldn’t do that.
no, you’re lying.
no, you’re exaggerating.
no, that’s not what i heard.

i don’t make a list, because it puts me back in the firing line.
and it’ll be me that’s scrutinised.

well, what were you wearing?
were you drunk?
weren’t you just playing hard to get?
are you sure you saw what you did, because that’s pretty dark?
nobody would do that.
you’re lying.

but the list still exists.
in my head.
i know who you are.

and
in my head
you don’t get away with it
not anymore.

for us;

I’m okay, really, I promise.
I promised you I’d never do anything.
And I won’t.
I don’t break promises,
especially not to you.

I’ll keep going.
No matter how much it hurts.
No matter how much I cry,
and I go to bed feeling the weight of the world on my chest.
I’ll keep going.
I’ll stay.

For us.

Because I promised us a life together.
And I’ve learnt you don’t lie about that.
I don’t. And I didn’t.
I meant it.
It’s us now.

You won’t find a note.
You won’t have unanswered messages or concerned calls from my family.
You won’t find me in the bath.

Unless it’s a bubble bath that you’ve ran me.
And you’re sat on the floor next to me
(because it’s too hot for you)
and I’m stealing chips off your plate,
and you’re blowing bubbles in my face
and we’re both laughing at where they land.

I made you a promise.
And I love you.

That thing that I don’t talk about, but need to talk about, even though I won’t say what it was.

You know…

the night when…
that happened…

You know, the thing I don’t talk about?

When that thing that happened to me…
happened…

You know? The one with my old gym coach…

I don’t call it by it’s name.

That night when I was shaking and powerless…

That night, back in that phase of my life.

And you know it bothers me still…

because now I think he’s getting married to…

the girl he said he was over, the night that that happened.

The girl who was my best friend at the time.

I want to go up to her, ask her…

“If a woman says no

twice

and a man continues anyway…

what does that sound like to you?”

Okay, good. I’m glad we’re on the same page.

Too easy

I think I’ve been too easy on you,
giving you credit where credit wasn’t due.
Saying you’re a good man deep down, and wishing you well,
but all of this niceness hurts me too.

Protecting your ego, your status, your pride,
even though the part of “you” that was “us” had died,
I still felt indebted to you, like I owed you something,
only to sacrifice my own peace of mind.

Our love was an empty house, and I was still haunting the halls,
singing your praises to the pictures on the walls,
thinking the problem, the hassle, the nuisance was me, when actually
forgiving you was my only downfall.

When you broke my heart I should’ve thanked you for it.
Instead I watched you watch in slow motion as it split,
with my head in my hands and tears streaked down my face.
I shouldn’t have stood for all your bullshit.

You had me on my knees,
and I was begging, pleading “please
don’t let this be the last of us, not here, not now”
but I am so grateful you didn’t agree.

So maybe I should thank you,
in the end, for what you put me through.
You raised all hell and pulled the earth out from under me.
But who knew a break up, could also be
a breakthrough?

the love you choose

My eyes burn from the tears I’m not crying
because I swore
I wouldn’t let what you did
hurt me anymore.

My hands are balled into fists
that won’t punch any walls.
The cracks in my heart not longer reflected
in brickwork
or frames of doors.

My mouth is pursed,
from words I’ll no longer let myself say.
I won’t pay any more lip service
to all the hell you raised.

But my heart remains open,
though still slightly bruised,
to accept the love from another,
and this time, it’s a love I choose.

road map.

I have been broken before.
Broken into so many pieces
I may as well have been
dust
on the floor.

Not the pretty “fill it with gold”
kind of broken either.
The ugly crying on the bathroom floor
in the cold,
kind of broken.

And not just once either. Numerous times.
Sometimes just a hairline fracture.
Sometimes nothing more than a bruised ego.
But sometimes, my heart completely ruptured.

And how do you recover?
Still put one foot in front of the other?
I have no answers,
But I know that I did it.

Some people might say,
my heart is still broken,
if I still write these words.

But I say,
the cracks left in my heart
were nothing short of a road map
that led me
to her.

.

I thought you were my full stop.
The ending.
To all my heartbreaks.
To all my upset.
To all my frogs not princes.
To my unhappiness.

It turns out I was just a comma to you,
a clause,
a throwaway line in your explanation,
of your mistakes.

maybe I’m not even that to you anymore.
maybe I’m actually (in brackets)
.

slow motion

I think it’s slowly hitting me
not in the way a wave hits you
washing over you
rushing up to meet your skin.
An old friend.

No, not like that.

I think it’s slowly hitting me
the way an HGV would
slowly
hit
you.
All of a sudden.
And in slow motion
at the same time.

I’ve been anticipating this impact
for so long now.
Bracing myself, muscles tensed,
that I almost don’t believe it’s over.

That I can relax now
drop my shoulders
unclench my jaw
let go.

Yesterday,
when I eventually put the phone down,
I could finally
pick myself back up
from where I left myself.

Those 11 years ago.

fairweather

Your not texting back,
was a stab to the heart.
But you were drinking cold liquor, with new friends
so you didn’t see that part.
You were already planning how our story would end.

In our story, from my side, we had endless pages.
But I guess you were just filling in the blanks,
until you thought you could escape this
and it came as a suckerpunch when I realised you’d pulled a Shawshank.

Too cowardly to tell me the truth,
that you lied when you said we had the rest of our lives together.
You kept me, like Dogtooth,
hidden from reality.
You were nothing more than a boyfriend for fairweather.

And when the storms rolled in,
and the thunderclaps boomed,
things headed the way they’d always been,
and you ran scared into the other room.

Away from my crying eyes
and into the arms of another.
Out of sight, out of mind,
safely beneath the skin of a different woman to hide under.

Someone sweeter,
someone breezier,
someone who wouldn’t call you a cheater.
A fairweather girlfriend,
and altogether
easier.

red flags

You always said you’d eventually learn how to dance with me, but you always had an excuse. You just didn’t care for the things I was passionate about. Red flag number 10.

You never cared for, or tried to understand, my love of Taylor Swift. I know that might sound petty. But it was important to me, and you openly mocked it. Red flag number 9.

You said you didn’t like tattoos, but you would make exceptions for my small ones. Well, now I have a big one. So fuck you. Red flag number 8.

We had similar tastes in music, but only when it came to folk and country. Anything else and I felt I had to filter my music choice around you. Because it was “too mainstream”. You always took the high ground when it came to music. Red flag number 7.

Your political views were the right ones, and no amount of debating would tell you otherwise. You took the high horse there too. Red flag number 6.

I was terrified of doing my pre-flight injections by myself, so I offered to pay for your megabus and the additional cost of the flight, for you to fly from Heathrow with me. To support me. But you outright refused. Red flag number 5.

You could never have a healthy disagreement. You’d bury your head in the sand at the first sign of conflict. Sweep it under the carpet. Until it blew up in our faces. Red flag number 4.

You made empty promises. The main one being that you’d always support me, no matter what. Red flag number 3.

One night, after weeks of my mental health rapidly declining, you said you’d rather go out and get drunk with another girl than come home to me. Red flag number 2.

You cheated on your girlfriend of four years to be with me.

Red flag number 1.