Resistance in Dear love

Dear love,

Remember how you used to say that I saw you? That I got you?

Oh, baby. Do I got you.

I couldn’t see before. Or, well. I could. But I didn’t see the damage you were inflicting. I saw your smile, your sex, your fingers inside of me, your sweet death that you slipped onto my tongue. I swallowed whatever you gave me and with a smile. I loved you, you know. And so I couldn’t see at all.

I’ve since taken an exact-o knife to my cataracts of love. A couple incisions here and there. Eyes don’t feel pain, after all. The thin film peels back, slimy on my fingers. Flick them to the ground and see the world you’ve painted for the stains on the crumbling wall that it actually is.

Your jumbled ideas, lies, promises, and manipulations are clear crayon-etched blueprints. I can make out the nonsense from your easy words you always fed me. Love that had no representation. Just promises and crushed dreams. You survived on emotional games that weren’t for fun. They were for pain.

With new found sight I looked at your handiwork and saw what you made me into. Who had I become as I listened to your babble? Who was I know? I couldn’t recognize myself as the person who fell in love with you. Now I am the person you scarred.

The person who loved you. Is it still love if you can see past the lies?

Every day I remove bits of your web from my mind, chase out the spiders of doubt, and open the shudders to the truth. Dust spirals everywhere. I choke on its thickness and on the doubt you left behind, a festering houseplant I can’t bring myself to rip out of the pot.

But the sunlight is here. I will scrub my bones until all signs of you have been ground off and sloughed off and forced out the door. Let someone else fall for your charm. I have no use for it anymore.

May you choke on the dust you left in me.

xoxo,
the dying plant