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.

grown up.

I’ve watched my Dad being stretchered downstairs,
after hearing my Mum trying to resuscitate him on the bedroom floor.
Am I a grown up yet?

I’ve found the contents of my then boyfriend’s laptop,
which I later discovered,
when talking to the police,
would’ve landed him on a register for at least five years.
And I didn’t say a word for over a decade.
Am I a grown up yet?

I’ve scrubbed my sister’s blood from her bedroom carpet,
her bedsheets,
her clothes,
after driving an hour to take her to A&E.
Am I a grown up yet?

I travelled across continents trying to find escape,
but ended up being heartbroken at the hands of the one man I thought I could trust.
Am I a grown up yet?

I travelled back alone.
Never how it was supposed to be.
And had to pick myself up from zero.
I had nothing.
Am I a grown up yet?

I’ve had friends confess their suicide plans to me,
and have had to talk them out of it.
Am I a grown up yet?

I have a stable job,
yet feel completely replaceable.
No one would notice if I wasn’t there anymore.
Am I a grown up yet?

Every day I wonder how many days I have left with my loved ones.
I picture their deaths in vivid detail.

Is this what it means to be an adult?
Am I a grown up yet?

i’m trying

Your water is still by my bed,
your pajamas still under my pillow.
And that’s how I like it,
even though you’re gone for the moment, and it hurts,
I like the reminders you leave behind.

Which is why I am so sorry
to have ever put you through
the idea
of me not being here.

For the nights where I couldn’t see a way forward,
and I thought there was only one solution –
pills, a blade and a bath.
That was selfish of me.

Because although I still have your glass of water
and your pajamas,
and it pains me that you’re gone for now,
that’s just it – it’s just for now.

What would I have left you with?
A handful of badly written poems
some polaroids,
maybe that piece of paper with
“i love you”
scrawled on in lipstick from a drunken night out.

And that would’ve been it.
And I am so sorry that I was selfish to believe
that that would’ve been
enough for you.

But I promise you, I’m trying.
I’ll write you more poems.
I’ll be there with you under the covers,
and I won’t leave you
with a cold side of the bed.

I’m trying.

gaslight

i turn to alcohol now.
i wonder if they all know what they’ve done.
it’s death by a thousand cuts.
not one instance bad enough to do any real harm.
but thousands of off-hand comments,
of lies,
of nasty looks,
of berating me every morning,
of commenting on my personality or appearance during the day.

of course i’m not talking about one man alone.
father.
would-be-sweet-heart.
boyfriends.
ex-boyfriends.
one night stands.

lies.
manipulations.
guilt trips.

you’ve fucked everything up.
i already had
OCD, MDD, GAD
how many more can we add to the list?

BPD?

is that the final nail in the coffin?
i think it is.

because now it’s alcohol. or valium. or cutting myself.
just to get through.

and i can’t do it anymore.

it’s ruining the one thing that’s ever meant so much to me.
it’s ruining me.
and i am lost.

how was i ever to find my way out,
of this dark tunnel,
if the only source of guidance,
was your gaslight?

Stay;

There will be plays you will see, poems you will read, sandwiches you will eat, new friends you will make, new dance moves you will learn. There will be hugs, and there will be kisses that stop time. There will be cups of tea on a balcony with a beautiful view of the sunset. There will be sunrises. There will be holding hands, running through the rain, sheltering under trees, and more kissing. There will be music you haven’t heard yet, that doesn’t even exist yet, that will move you to tears, or become your new favourite track to dance to. There will be weddings, your own included. There will be swimming in a clear blue sea. There will be cold, crisp glasses of New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, on hazy summers evenings. There will be dogs to pet. Films to laugh at. New mountains to climb. There will be warm cosy jumpers and mulled wine at Christmas. There will be a time you see your big sister again. There will be new books to read, that will take you on new adventures from the comfort of your bedroom. There will be more answers than questions. There will be poetry that flows out of you. There will be ceilidhs, and so much dancing. There will be gigs so incredible you lose your voice from screaming the words so loud. There will be new tunes to learn, and to pass on. There will be late nights you never want to end. There will be early morning runs that enrich your soul. There will be new songs to sing.
There will be a time when you no longer remember how bad it got.
Stay.

sad girl chronicles pt. 2: what if, for me, it’s always you?

(This piece of writing eventually evolved into the poem I posted a few weeks back – two paths)

I miss him. I miss you. I don’t know who I’m writing to anymore.
I’ve realised I’m burying a lot of it so the memories don’t hurt me. And I’m forgetting parts of you, but I don’t want to forget.

I don’t want to forget that first night we got together. The intensity of those feelings. The electricity between us. The static. The chemistry. How it all just fell into place. Kissing you felt so right, so natural.

I don’t want to forget the night you accidentally told me you loved me for the first time. You said something like – I don’t just love you for what you look like. And I said, what did you just say? And then you said it. And I said it too.

I don’t want to forget the sounds of you playing your guitar for me. You are one of the most talented and modest musicians I have ever known. And I’m glad you’re doing solo gigs now. I really hope that goes well for you.

I remember the time when I needed to change the gauze on my leg and I was in agony, and you sat by me and played for me to distract me.

I remember lying in the bath once, with a cup of tea, listening to you play, thinking “I’ve made it”, and “How did I ever get so lucky?”

How did I ever get so lucky?
And I ruined it.

Or did we just grow apart? Like you said, maybe it was never meant to be. But it really felt like it was. I could picture our wedding and our first child’s name. I could picture you playing them lullabies to sleep. And us taking them to folk festivals when they were older. And they’d be musical too, because we were.

Maybe I put you on a pedestal, but I think you deserved it. Maybe no one will ever quite live up to you. But that’s okay. Because for three and a half glorious years, you were mine. We were a team. Adventure buddies. And I will always treasure those years. No matter how many years go by now without seeing each other. Maybe some time in the future we’ll go years without even contacting each other. I dread those years to come.

No one will ever come close to what we were, what we had, and how we loved each other.

Maybe you’ve already started moving on. Maybe we’re already on different paths now. Maybe we were on different paths long before I knew it. Holding onto each other’s hands barely by the fingertips. But I didn’t realise. And I didn’t see the warning signs.

Now our paths have diverged. It’s not our story anymore. It’s mine, and it’s yours. But for almost four years, it was ours. And it was magic. We were solid gold.

I just miss my best friend. But I’m not sure he misses me in the same way. It’s always harder being the one on the receiving end of a break up. Being blind-sided by it. It hitting you like a tonne of bricks in the chest, every morning when you wake up and realise you’re alone again. A cold side of the bed next to you. And stuffed animals as some sort of childish replacement for human affection. It doesn’t help that one of them you sent me in the post for my birthday, after we’d broken up.

I live with my emotions close to the surface. I know that now. I feel things more acutely. And you don’t. You bury them. You always have. That’s how I know that you’re moving on just fine and I’m periodically crying my heart out into the pages of my diary.

I just wished you missed me the way I miss you.
I’ve been trying to distract myself, but no one compares to you. I’m worried no one will ever compare to us.
I’m worried I’ll spend my life wishing it was you I was sat across the table from, you who I was falling asleep next to, waking up next to, making cups of tea for, returning home from work to, kissing.
I’m worried I’ll spend my life with your name on the tip of my tongue, and images of you leaving me at Chiang Mai airport playing behind my eyes.

What if that feeling never goes?
What if, for me, it’s always going to be you?

a rant about weight loss

TW: weight loss (with numbers), disordered eating, body image

I’ve lost weight. Not healthily. Not intentionally. But as a by-product of extreme anxiety and stress-induced IBS. I haven’t had an appetite. I was gagging every time I tried to eat. And when I did eat eventually, I’d only eat about half of the food on my plate before feeling sick again. And I’d have an upset stomach up to 6 or 7 times a day. It was unhealthy. (I’m using past tense because I am now back in the UK and my appetite and metabolism seem to have returned to normal.) I would get head rushes just standing up. I’d feel weak and unsteady. I’d had to stop running because I didn’t have the physical energy.

I have lost a stone and a half in about 5 months. This bothers me. For numerous reasons:
a) People feel the need to comment on it
b) People automatically assume it’s 1) intentional and 2) a positive thing
c) Do I like it, secretly?

a) People feel the need to comment on it.
I’ve had several people openly make comments about my body in a public space where my colleagues or acquaintances are within earshot. It is not okay to openly make comments about a person’s body size, shape or anything else. It draws attention to the recipient, usually unwanted, and also draws the attention of everyone else in the room to start scrutinising your body and making their own silent judgments. Or that’s what it feels like.
I had a (male) colleague say “Wow, have you lost a lot of weight? You look like you have!” in front of a staff room of other colleagues. Now, I get it, he thought it was a compliment. He’d assumed I’d been intentionally trying to lose weight and therefore had been successful and wanted to express some backwards and unsolicited form of congratulations. BUT THAT IS NOT HOW IT SHOULD BE. No-one should ever think it appropriate to make comments about perceived weight loss to another person, especially in a public setting. You don’t know what that person is going through. You don’t know whether they’re ill or not. You don’t know if they have a history of disordered eating and distorted body image *raises hand*. If you don’t know for absolute sure, you don’t comment. I wanted to respond with something cutting like “Yeah, I’m actually trying this new weight-loss program called “my life is being rapidly overtaken by anxiety” paired with a complementary program of irritable bowel syndrome. You should try it – if I recommend a friend you can get a 10% discount”. But, embarrassingly, I just said “Thanks” and I hate myself for it.
That particular comment made me very self-conscious. I thought – did he think I needed to lose weight before? Was I perceived as being overweight before? Should I strive to maintain my new body shape, or worse continue to shrink it?
I also had a (now very recent ex) boyfriend, in an intimate moment, say he could actually feel it on my body, the weight I’d lost. (Although, to be fair to him, he was upset by it because he knew how ill I’d been.)

b) People automatically assume it’s 1) intentional and 2) a positive thing
I’ve had friends make comments that suggest I should be pleased with my weight-loss – despite me explaining to them the toxic causes of it. I even had my Dad say – when I told him I’d lost over 10kg – “Well, that’s not a bad thing!” Implying that I had weight that needed losing? Implying that it’s a good thing that I’m smaller now, and should be happy to be so?
I’ve had friends say “I wish I could drop a stone and a half that quickly”. No. No, you don’t. Not by the means I’ve lost the weight. I don’t want congratulations – when I confided in my friends about the weight loss I wanted support and sympathy. Not jealousy. I was terrified I’d keep losing the weight like I did when I was 14, that I’d become dangerously underweight again. I didn’t want a pat on the back.
And I know, women have just internalised all the messages we receive from the media about how our bodies should look, so can I really blame my friends for responding in the way they did?

c) Do I like it, secretly?
And finally, the hardest part of all – do I actually secretly like it? Am I secretly glad I’ve lost the weight, even if it was unintentional and achieved by very unpleasant means? Despite of my new found feminism, body positivity, health-at-every-size attitude, I can’t seem to shake that lingering shadow in the corner that whispers “Skinnier is better and you know it. Skinnier is sexier, and sexier is more power and control. And that’s what we crave, isn’t it?” It’s insidious. But it’s still there and I can’t overthrow it with all the bopo-insta in the world. There’s something hard-wired into me, that says I should always strive to be physically more attractive. I know why. But that’s not something to get into right now.

On a positive note, in the three days since my return to the UK, my appetite has returned, and my IBS appears to have abated *touch wood*. And the sensible, rational part of my brain knows that the healthy thing to want is for my weight to stabilise, or even increase.

Oh, sensible rational brain, please come through for me this time.