The Breaking

The Breaking

You were a puzzle I desperately wanted to complete

I contorted myself into every one of your missing pieces and it was never enough

So, I'd get ready to leave

Then

in love soaked drunken haze you'd talk about the children we'd have or where we might live so I stayed for the promises of tomorrows you never intended to keep

Then there'd be a next time, the gin pickled your compassion and in place of loving brume threw out hate; lamenting your misunderstood plight in life and the unknowable pain you felt

Your abuse came in flavors; bitter mockery, flaming anger, and sour ridicule of way of existing in the world, the same way on other days you'd love

When you'd sober up, we'd talk and sometimes it'd be okay. Other days you gave me your burdens to hold and if I objected you'd scold me for you walking on the eggshells of everything you broke in us

I was always, always confused by that but I'd try harder to be better so you could be okay

I stopped talking to you about all the days and ways you hurt me. By then you'd stopped sobering up at all.

Even if you had been willing to listen I'm not sure how much you'd be able to retain, the disease was taking so much from you by then

...

no matter

you had me well trained at that juncture. I became the weatherman of our days. Reading subtle room weather patterns, watching for your rains.

Preparing our home for your storms. Our home, you never failed to note, was never mine but only yours. Though you asked me to spend all my hours there though, should I become too comfortable, would remind me I could go

I learned to lessen your thunder by offering foot rubs, lunch dates, and freshly baked bread. I'd stroke your hair until you fell asleep (passed out) smelling always of alcohol and my failure to keep you well.

Some days the winds of your self destructive disasters were too great to bear and I'd simply wait for the storm to pass. I trained myself to stop showing you my fear because my emotions, especially my fear, my needs, my wants and my tears made you 'regret' me.

A pain that cuts still

I learned what your abuse intended to train. Showing you only curated versions of myself that you liked, in amounts you approved of and only at times you desired. Asking even, for permission to leave the room

Eventually though, it still wasn't enough.

On the last day we were us I was in your kitchen, cleaning up, after baking healthy snacks, in accordance with your doctor, after cleaning my place, after an 8 hour shift

Somewhere in the sleep deprivation and domestic details I forgot myself and told you something in my heart, something that was making me happy

To which, unapplied and inebriated, you told me how bad of an example I set at my job.

Where I'd been promoted.

Twice.

Something broke; awoke, within me and remembering myself, finally, I clapped back. You sulked like a 36 year old teenager and passed out while I showered.

I tried to talk to you 3 times over the next 7 days about what had happened but at every turn you doubled down, insisting, this was 'much to do about nothing'. Although, I suppose, my feelings were nothing to you and what a hassle it would be to care I was hurt

All the same you were sure, at any rate, that I had it all wrong. So I left. I gave your mom the fulfillment of a promise made of warning when I found myself no way to stay and having to go.

At their request, I came, a hail Mary pass to save your live with our love that you were hellbent on throwing away

I watched you abuse every person you swore to me only to protect and I cried, a little at first, then a downpour that wouldn't relent; a releasing of all your storms I was never safe enough to embrace came pouring out.

I watched everything we'd been or could ever hope to be die.

Once it was over and my usefulness shifted to obsolete I was discarded. It suddenly became clear where you'd learned it; the art of disorientation through giving kindness and cruelty in equal measure.

I cried for 7 hours that day.

It wasn't until weeks later, after setting boundaries with all those who had emotionally fileted me, that I understood I was a survivor,

of abuse,

of you, the abuser

in knowing and naming what I'd endured I found the pieces missing from the puzzle of my freedom, the answer to why I could never leave or stay gone

but now I could, so i did.

Now I do, finally free from us, thriving out of the ashes as someone new, someone you never knew

The Rising (3 months later)

I went to the last place I can remember who I was before you; the same place that held me after our first break; that welcomes me back after our last.

I sang the music you never liked; the songs I put on a playlist of us that you fast-forwarded through.

I laid down in spiders; letting their webs keep all the words we shouldn't have said, the ones you left unsaid, and your portion of our blame you let me carry alone.

I stood up and let the wind take all the anxieties reading the room for your moods gave me and i let them float away ---saying the goodbye you wouldn't give us

Honoring the good in the love I'm leaving behind, seeing clearly, now, how your punishment-affection-withholding chipped away at my foundation

I understand the strength I held; hold because despite it all I kept getting kinder, softer, and wiser while you let life make you colder; using my light to stay warm and blaming me without saying a word when it wasn't enough to stop the past from catching up to you

I originally left for you, but I'm staying away for me. For the girl your abuse buried and for the fiery phoenix of a woman who lit her world on fire, trusting she'd be strong enough to find joy in the unknowable aftermath

Today is my closure.

Pieces of what we were sprinkled on the grounds of where we'd been and I'm going home

beautifully whole, finding hope blooming in the holes where your lies used to live, feeling the clouds fill me up, holding space for all that awaits, ready to begin and

I'm happy

I'm free, back home to me.

The spiderwebs can keep all our yesterdays, I've got beautiful todays and tomorrows to attend to.