A Letter to You, From Your Past Bitch
I hope you know how you siphoned my soul.
How a slow drip becomes a hurricane pour
when you choose oblivion over therapy.
I hope you forgive yourself for everything
except for what you did to me.
I hope guilt finds you in the night
and that it stays with you for a while.
I hope you know that when you tried to kill me
I grew back something fierce.
That your final move said a lot about you
and absolutely nothing about me.
I hope you know how you blocked the light
from reaching me.
That I see your bullshit as nothing more
than an epically failed indoctrination.
That when your hate came at my heart
it got the shit kicked out of it
and went home crying.
I hope you know your abuse will hurt you
far more than it ever will me.
That when you tried to make me disappear
I decided I'd haunt you forever instead.
I hope you know that
if for even a second
I believed you were right
this poem is one big proclamation
of that sure as shit won't happen again.
I hope you know you are not
what is best for this world.
That the ground won't even like you enough
to sprout a weed from your grave.
That while everything you touch dies
I live like a fucking rockstar.
I hope you know that helping you see
how your privilege blinds you
is a full-time job I'll never volunteer for again.
I hope by some miracle you realize
Roe v. Wade matters more than your tax break
but that might be a lot to ask of a cause as
hopeless as you.
I hope you know the only thing you ever gave me was
shame
and that I don't have one fucking iota of it now.
That I bathe in how small that makes you feel.
I hope you know that your final gift was one
I didn't know I needed
til it slapped me in the face.
And that damn it felt warm
to walk away the bigger person.
I hope you know I wouldn't ride your carousel from
hell again
if forty-five pairs of Doc Martens
waited for me at the end of it.
I hope you know that I am bigger
than you will ever be.
That you are just a speck of ash
in a hellfire so old
no one remembers it.
I hope you know that you betrayed
the best thing you will ever have.
That I positively revel
in the glory of living
to honor the pieces you couldn't keep of me.
I hope you know that when you said I was nothing
you failed at the one small thing
that should've been easy.
That the only sin I will absolve myself of
is you.
That I could find good in anyone
until you were born
and made that expression obsolete.
I hope that you're reading this now
and that you had to sit down.
I hope you know that even though
the only commitment you ever kept in your life
was convincing me you were all I had
I don't waste a single breath
on telling your story anymore.