moving on from screams to whispers

something i wrote over a span of a year while in an abusive relationship

When I first looked into your eyes and was able to push past your golden irises, I knew I could find my shaking body taking comfort in between your lanky limbs.

I climbed into your lap and you hung over me like a blanket, stitched with broken promises, seeping out like whispers.

I see you in everything my eyes meet,

from soft smiles on lips of strangers I slip past in grocery stores

to yellows in the sunset that make me question if I’ve ever seen such a shade before.

You say I am your only worry,

but what about the inner demons you spoke of in the car when the traffic lights illuminated your silhouette?

I know they have not left.

I can see it in the way you speak,

your words fumble and trip over themselves like clumsy feet.

And you can tell me you are okay,

but my love,

I know only so much can be pushed into your gut,

into the back of your mind,

before it all comes back up and swallows you whole.

I know you have wanted to feel alive and as the sun set across a landscape of mountains and we drove on dirt roads, you did.

Lilac and burnt orange danced across the sky for seemed like the whole ride.

Later that day, you held me the same way you did when our love was only lust.

My eyes landed on your curled-corner lips and watched as you spoke of how you wanted to stay forever.

I know you feel hopeless- as if the only thing left is to let go of years of pure life.

I begged you selfishly.

You said you had a list of reasons to live-

but you couldn’t quite call it a list for all it consisted of was me.

I know what you are going to say- so do not say it.

You are going to tell me to stop thinking so much,

to just live one day at a time.

I only want to live those so called days beside you.

You have shown me why life is worth each gasping breath through soft touches of hands and whispered promises.

I wish you could say the same about me and I know you have told the world of our love,

but maybe it is not the same for us both.

We always spoke of moving up to paradise and spending the rest of our lives in between trees. We promised years of waking up beside each other.

You are being taken away from me without time to repair the pieces of my heart that have already begun to chip away

like pieces of a teacup that sits on a shelf but still manages to break.

You said you would never leave me, but what do you call this?

My fingers cannot stretch over state lines to reach you like they can when we are only blankets apart.

I feel so lost and you are the map.

A whole year later,

we have been apart for as long as we were together and I have never felt so alive.

The bruises have healed twice over,

her name no longer feels like poison.

You used to haunt my bones like an unwanted ghost,

taking organs and limbs as souvenirs of such ghastly accomplishments.

I allowed you to pour too much water into my roots and drown my petals in something that was only supposed to help me grow.

Our love no longer exists for I have no reason to love someone who did not have the decency to love me back.

I know you will deny it,

but your words are unconvincing slurs,

the disappointment spills from them for I no longer answer your calls

or beg for a love much stronger than you will ever be.

I used to wish I had a reason to give you my heart yet there is something worth more; myself.