***
There is a universe where you exist better
You have loving parents
You are not neglected
Your mother does not call you a demon
Your father does not leave
You are not in pain
I slept well when you were gone
When you had left me
Not on Valentine’s Day when you actually left
No, that was a night of scratchy tears
After I had had to gather all of my soreness and pack it away for later
After the day was done
After I had performed and smiled in lifts and corridors and laughed at jokes around the open-plan
When I had gone to the bathroom to breathe into tissues, stifling tattering cries
After that
I slept better
I had no anxieties
I was not waiting for phone calls that would not come when promised
I wasn’t checking to see the end of football matches, to see when you would find the time to prioritise me
I wasn’t waiting for responses to my texts, wondering who you were responding to when you were online but not responding to me
Wondering who got to be prioritised
How they came to be prioritised by you
How they had earned it
Was that the reward for waiting, for being available, for being cheerful and listening endlessly, for being discarded, for forgiving, for explaining away, for allowing?
Was that the formula?
Or was it in being unavailable or not being too unavailable?
And how was I to get unavailable just right?
How many phone calls would I have to ignore?
How many texts would I have to respond with short and uninterested answers to?
I slept well
I nurtured no anxieties
My brain wasn’t turning against me
He loves me he loves me not he doesn’t love me
I wasn’t fighting my soul
I wasn’t silencing its voice
Its truths
He won’t stay
Valentine’s Day and all of its tears
Why have you let him back in?
Don’t you remember how he destroyed you the last time that he left?
Don’t you remember how he left you small?
He can’t stay
You cannot be small again
You cannot beg for love again
You cannot beg to be touched to be desired to be tasted to be wanted to be seen
He can’t stay
I slept well
The truths of my soul and myself were aligned
I had peace
I wasn’t disloyal to my soul
I was not betraying and reducing my soul
My skin glowed
It shone with happiness, peace, strength
It had the moisture of joy, freedom, autonomy
It belonged to itself, not dependent on the attentions of another
I slept well
I was free
Free of longing
Of anxiety
You need to leave
You can’t come back here
I am awake and you are squeezing my skin of all its moisture and stepping on my soul.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash