The Undone Dead

he was not a monster
not at first.
at first,
he said i was beautiful
in ways i had never been called anything before.
and goddamn it, i believed him.

but beauty turns sour when it’s something
they only see in pieces.
he never saw me whole.
he liked me most
when i was crying.

they ask:
why didn’t you tell someone?
i wanted to.
so many fucking times.
but eighth grade had taught me
that even when you speak,
people only blink
and ask the wrong questions.
ask what you were wearing.
ask if you were sure.
ask if maybe you misunderstood.
ask if maybe they just loved you too much.

i tried.
and i failed.
and the silence sealed it.

he once locked me out on a third-floor balcony
knowing my phobia.
once slammed me so hard into a wall
i carried the corner of that drywall
in a bruise down my spine
for two weeks.
but still i stayed.
because the idea of leaving
felt worse than the pain.
because he’d already convinced me
that no one else ever would want
what he hadn’t already broken.

and then came the morning.

i was twenty.
not a child.
but not anything else, either.
not someone who knew how to say no loud enough.
not someone who knew how to run.
not someone with keys or a phone
when he took them both
and disappeared
after.

i threw up on the sheets.
green diamonds like little windows
framing what had just happened.
i stripped the bed
and fed the washing machine
like it could undo it.
like soap and spin cycles
could unwrite that hour.

he showered.
then left.
didn’t say where.
just took his car
and my fucking keys
and vanished.

i stayed.
i folded the wet sheets.
i sat on the left side of the couch
where he always made me sit
and waited.
like a dog.
like something he could train.
like something he already had.

i tell myself i died that morning.
not my body –
that kept walking around,
feeding itself,
smiling at cashiers,
texting friends, pretending nothing had happened.

but something deeper.
something that doesn’t resurrect.

and the thing about that kind of death
is that it doesn’t scream.
it lingers.
in every bathroom mirror
where you don’t recognize the face.
in the sound your stomach makes
when it coils in dread
just walking into a room.
in the way your shoulders flinch
when someone hugs you from behind.

there’s no name for this kind of ruin.
only the long, slow grief
for the person
i was supposed to become
before he fucking rewrote me
from the inside out.

they call it trauma.
i call it theft.
and desecration.
and splintering.
like the sound of your name rubbed smooth
from the inside of your mouth.

he stole the version of me
who might have felt safe in my own skin,
who might have gone dancing in a strange city
without fear,
who might have touched love
without first recoiling from it.

now,
when someone touches me,
it’s not desire i feel.
it’s calculation.
can i flinch without them noticing?
can i survive this without them thinking
i’m too much,
too ruined,
too broken to love?

they say time heals.
what a fucking lie.
time hides things
under new responsibilities.
time lets you rehearse a smile
until your face forgets how to cry.
but healing –
healing would take more than time.
it would take unraveling
everything that rewired me.
it would take
a thousand gentle hands
and more patience
than anyone’s ever had for me.

i don’t forgive him.
i don’t owe that to anyone.
not to a god,
not to healing,
not to the empty promises
of closure.

what i carry
is not a scar.
it’s a ghost with my face
and his hands.
it climbs into bed
when the house forgets to make noise.
it doesn’t ask.
it doesn’t leave.

From the upcoming collection of poetry, “Black Butterflies”