nineteen in poems

i never wanted to be your wife

i wanted to be your salvation
the gentle promise of hope on the horizon
that would breathe recovery into your addiction and make it bleed on the ground
beside the bed we slept in but didn’t rest in

so lost in my own labyrinth of trauma and codependence i couldn’t see that I was lost in you
needed you to need me to see me being good to you so you’d never leave

then i left
and the walls didn’t collapse nor did my lungs and i could breathe and the bills still got paid and nothing was terrible and i was better and i stopped walking on eggshells and
you were gone

i was never your wife
i was the salve you wiped onto your wounds when you picked them open
hoping i would heal you or keep the loneliness away for one more day
i was the money you spent on your drugs and the vulnerability you sharpened into weapons
i was the woman you lied to with a smile and called wife but meant victim

i never wanted to be your victim, either