Fruit Punch

To those who don't realize what they have done, and to those who have tried to show them...

Have you ever heard

the word toxic?

I’m sure you have but

I don’t know if

you ever realized that,

in regards to our relationship,

your name was

in the definition.

I don’t like to say

that about you, but looking

back on the canyons in

my heart carved out

by the the rivers of tears

I cried in your name,

it isn’t something I

can possibly deny.

I asked for you to

change so many times

that I could have been

mistaken for a broken record.

But it was like talking

in solitary confinement so that

the only thing I could hear

in return was my own

voice, and after a while

I thought it was yours.

I told myself that maybe

if I pushed myself into

the mold you set for me,

things would be okay.

And you made me feel

as though that was the

right thing to do, because

it would make you happy.

You warped the idea

of giving up who I was

into the word “trying.”

And it was like I was

a butterfly crushing my

wings back into the

cocoon and wishing that

somehow I would turn

into a caterpillar.

But I lived for those

moments when you wiped

the tears from my eyes and

told me I was beautiful,

because in the midst of

you comforting me with

your warmth, I forgot that

you were the reason

I was crying.

But you don’t see that.

You think everything you

touch turns to gold, but

it’s not out of malice or

arrogance for the most part.

Instead, it is out

of naivety, lack of what

comes from the experience of

knowing that everything you

have turned to gold can be

melted right back with

the saltwater tears I cried.

I don’t think you

understand you were toxic.

I don’t know if you ever will.

It isn’t easy to

smell a drop of poison

when it is mixed into

a cup of fruit punch.