an unwritten life

I don’t lie to my typewriter

just like I never lied to you

Should I tell you this way that I believe
you need
a fucking lot of therapy
It wouldn’t make sense to you
I spent months fearing the way your mind warps what you hear
& how the liquor only makes you more repugnant and blind
you’ve got inner worlds of insecurities I’m not even going to try to describe
Let’s talk about how every time I tried to speak you’d talk over me
preferring your own symphony, self-absorbed bullshit, your favorite litany
I’m convinced you never really heard me

But I am not a stand-in for some elaborately dreamed pixie
I know you like my dark arts, the poetry & pool & whiskey
How did I let it happen? I knew from the beginning
of course now, I see it so clearly, you had a long game of
subtle manipulations
it was kind of stunning, really

When you woke me that morning at 3 and started screaming & guzzling gin
I knew who you really were, finally
When you left for the bar that morning at 11 I knew I had to leave
so I packed fast and drove across Lake Pontchartrain 
When you called me shrieking just after I’d hit Mississippi
sometime around 2 in the afternoon
& you told me you’d kill yourself if I didn’t “come home”
I turned the car around and I knew
I’d have to play the long game too

Do you remember that day? You put your hands on me
How the fear on my face made you cry like a child, how
you’d calm down for a second just to erupt again
You screamed and spit in my face
anything you thought would hurt me
until I hit you in the jaw, trying to get you to shut the fuck up
You fell to the floor and I fell too, ashamed, I failed myself worse
than I ever failed you
Do you remember how many times I told you “no”
& still you pushed inside me
because it’s not rape if you’re dating

And now you want to know why I left
You made me weak but I’m giving up on that
You made me someone I don’t recognize but I’m giving up on that
and even if leaving you how I did, with all my things still scattered like a
crime scene collecting dust, makes me somewhat of a cunt
believe me, I hope that fucking tortures you
because it still doesn’t seem like enough