Seven Times.
Seven times to get me here.
It took me seven times to break the cycle
Of muttered apologies, rushed confessions of “I’ve been thinking about you” and “I still love you”
Seven separate occasions where I apologized for my
Various short comings, things I shouldn’t have said, things I shouldn’t have brought up, for not being good enough, for being too angry, for being too sad, for being me.
The first time was super bowl four years ago, we fought because he made a rape joke and it upset me. I said mean things to hurt him like, “Hey remember when you told me you thought about dating one of my friends while we were together but decided against it because I’m just too fucking awesome?”
He called me a bitch, said he never wanted to speak to me again. He called five hours later to make up.
Said, “Baby, I love you and I need you. You’re my world. You’re so beautiful and special.”
It was late summer a month after our second anniversary, he told me “I don’t love you anymore, but let’s be friends”
He asked me over. He said, “I’m starting to like you again. You’re so beautiful, so nice, so amazing.” And he kissed me so softly it was like he never existed in the first place.
Three days later I was lying in a hot room on a half-deflated air mattress in northern Virginia when he said
“I’m sorry. This needs to end. I feel weird fucking my best friend.”
On the last night of the democratic convention, we were at a school playground.
I was laughing and he put his hand on my shoulder to stop me from turning around and took my face in his hands and he kissed me so deeply it was like drowning.
I asked him why he did that and my voice was strangled in the back of my throat
And he said, “I love you. I fucked up. You are so beautiful and special and funny and smart and amazing and I love you so much, will you please forgive me? Will you please be my girlfriend again? I need you.”
I said yes. Of course I said yes. I wanted to scream yes. But instead I say yes and it’s okay and we need to hurry, I’m going to be late, Obama speaks in twenty minutes and he kissed me.
After a week in Florida we went on a date and we saw Les miserable and it should have been a sign that a movie about miserable things meant miserable things would happen to me.
He broke up with me over text message twenty minutes after taking me home and didn’t speak to me until a month and five days later when he asked me out to dinner to talk like “old times” and I was so dead inside that I said, “Yes please”.
He left 24 hours later, blocked me on all forms of social media and I never put my hair up again.
In May he said he was sorry. Said it over and over again like he couldn’t say anything else.
We took a walk to one of our usual places and when it started to storm he took my hand and we ran.
We kissed in his car while rain fell down the windows and I watched it as I cried still tasting him on my lips and my heart ached so badly even though he was inches from me, just staring at my eyelids.
It rained while the sun was still shining that day.
I thought things were going to be okay.
We had sex behind his church and afterwards he said, “That was weird. I don’t know how to have sex with you without saying I love you.”
He texted me three days later to say, “I think I’m ready now. We should do it again sometime soon?”
He texted me two days later to say, “So, I’m in a relationship with my friend. It kind of just happened.”
I said, “I still loved you.”
He said, “That’s nice.”
When he came back in August, I thought about saying no.
It was a mess and I was a mess and I thought I could handle it but it’s hard not to love someone when you never even got over them in the first place.
So, for seven months we were together, but not together, but I’m pretty sure spooning and holding hands and saying “I have feelings for you” means more than friends with benefits
Because I saw that movie with Ashton Kutcher too, and that’s just not how it works.
On the way home from the mall one night he said, “I like you!” so loudly I thought it would break the windows. That night he took my face in his hands and kissed me like he used to.
Two days later he said, “I like you. I like her. I do like you, but I just really like Pam too. I’m going to be with her and you can’t do anything about it.”
The last time I talked to him was when I had to knock on his door and ask for my things back because I spent a week trying to communicate because fuck you, you’re not going to keep my harry potter books you fucking fuck.
Seven times.
I look back now with such agony like looking back at bad haircuts I had in middle school
Why did I do that?
Why?
Because I was a fucked up kid who had constant fucked up things in her head
Who thought she was so unworthy of this world, of love, of respect and care that she should die.
I was sad and lonely and I needed to feel wanted, to feel loved, and to feel like
I was beautiful
Sharks often sense weak, injured animals and they attack them.
That’s one of the reasons why flailing around in the water is so dangerous.
And it’s hard not to love someone who said so many times that
Your love was keeping them alive.
He fell in love with a girl across the bridge,
Because no one in a fifty mile radius would love him
He had to find someone that no one else knew
A brand new slate
That his list of ex-girlfriends couldn’t taint and steal away
I wonder what he’ll say the next time he is bored and lonely
I wonder how many times he will apologize
I wonder if she tastes my blood when she kisses him
I wonder if she knows all the ghosts he left behind
Half rotting girls still trying to find their pieces
I was a vessel for his love
A doll for him to poor his insecurities into
Someone for him to look at, for someone else to say they loved him.
I kept saying
I do not exist for you, I do not exist for you, I do not exist for you
Because I was starting to not believe it
For six months I felt like I was dead
That the world was stuck in loop so that my afterlife would be the same
Wake up. Don’t eat. Try to listen to music. Paint your face. Go to class. Try to pay attention. See that nice boy in the back of your class with the glasses and try to fall in love just to see if you can do it. Go home. Don’t eat. Don’t sleep. Repeat.
He comes back, holds you close when you cry, tells you that you are alive, kisses you like you are made of thin glass, tells you that you are worthy of this world, laughs at your jokes, tucks you in at night
Keeps you a secret, tells his mother that you’re just friends, tells his new friends that you were the crazy ex-girlfriend, tells Pam that you two were on again off again nothing now so don’t worry about a thing.
He leaves. Wake up. Don’t eat. Try to listen to music. Paint your face. Go to class. Try to pay attention. See that nice boy across campus with the glasses and try to fall in love just to see if you can do it. Succeed ever so slightly. Go home. Don’t eat. Don’t sleep. Repeat
Repeat until you find the words to say to strangers, when hugs aren’t so bad, when you can be in the middle of a crowded party without panicking, when you can talk to that boy with the glasses and feel okay, when you can fall asleep, when you stop dreaming of fucked up kids, when you can eat again, when you can breathe again, when music means something again, repeat and repeat and repeat.
Seven times.
It took me seven damn times to come to where I am now.
Healed. Loved. Happy. Healthy.
Alive.
Here.
It took me seven times to break the cycle
Of muttered apologies, rushed confessions of “I’ve been thinking about you” and “I still love you”
Seven separate occasions where I apologized for my
Various short comings, things I shouldn’t have said, things I shouldn’t have brought up, for not being good enough, for being too angry, for being too sad, for being me.
The first time was super bowl four years ago, we fought because he made a rape joke and it upset me. I said mean things to hurt him like, “Hey remember when you told me you thought about dating one of my friends while we were together but decided against it because I’m just too fucking awesome?”
He called me a bitch, said he never wanted to speak to me again. He called five hours later to make up.
Said, “Baby, I love you and I need you. You’re my world. You’re so beautiful and special.”
It was late summer a month after our second anniversary, he told me “I don’t love you anymore, but let’s be friends”
He asked me over. He said, “I’m starting to like you again. You’re so beautiful, so nice, so amazing.” And he kissed me so softly it was like he never existed in the first place.
Three days later I was lying in a hot room on a half-deflated air mattress in northern Virginia when he said
“I’m sorry. This needs to end. I feel weird fucking my best friend.”
On the last night of the democratic convention, we were at a school playground.
I was laughing and he put his hand on my shoulder to stop me from turning around and took my face in his hands and he kissed me so deeply it was like drowning.
I asked him why he did that and my voice was strangled in the back of my throat
And he said, “I love you. I fucked up. You are so beautiful and special and funny and smart and amazing and I love you so much, will you please forgive me? Will you please be my girlfriend again? I need you.”
I said yes. Of course I said yes. I wanted to scream yes. But instead I say yes and it’s okay and we need to hurry, I’m going to be late, Obama speaks in twenty minutes and he kissed me.
After a week in Florida we went on a date and we saw Les miserable and it should have been a sign that a movie about miserable things meant miserable things would happen to me.
He broke up with me over text message twenty minutes after taking me home and didn’t speak to me until a month and five days later when he asked me out to dinner to talk like “old times” and I was so dead inside that I said, “Yes please”.
He left 24 hours later, blocked me on all forms of social media and I never put my hair up again.
In May he said he was sorry. Said it over and over again like he couldn’t say anything else.
We took a walk to one of our usual places and when it started to storm he took my hand and we ran.
We kissed in his car while rain fell down the windows and I watched it as I cried still tasting him on my lips and my heart ached so badly even though he was inches from me, just staring at my eyelids.
It rained while the sun was still shining that day.
I thought things were going to be okay.
We had sex behind his church and afterwards he said, “That was weird. I don’t know how to have sex with you without saying I love you.”
He texted me three days later to say, “I think I’m ready now. We should do it again sometime soon?”
He texted me two days later to say, “So, I’m in a relationship with my friend. It kind of just happened.”
I said, “I still loved you.”
He said, “That’s nice.”
When he came back in August, I thought about saying no.
It was a mess and I was a mess and I thought I could handle it but it’s hard not to love someone when you never even got over them in the first place.
So, for seven months we were together, but not together, but I’m pretty sure spooning and holding hands and saying “I have feelings for you” means more than friends with benefits
Because I saw that movie with Ashton Kutcher too, and that’s just not how it works.
On the way home from the mall one night he said, “I like you!” so loudly I thought it would break the windows. That night he took my face in his hands and kissed me like he used to.
Two days later he said, “I like you. I like her. I do like you, but I just really like Pam too. I’m going to be with her and you can’t do anything about it.”
The last time I talked to him was when I had to knock on his door and ask for my things back because I spent a week trying to communicate because fuck you, you’re not going to keep my harry potter books you fucking fuck.
Seven times.
I look back now with such agony like looking back at bad haircuts I had in middle school
Why did I do that?
Why?
Because I was a fucked up kid who had constant fucked up things in her head
Who thought she was so unworthy of this world, of love, of respect and care that she should die.
I was sad and lonely and I needed to feel wanted, to feel loved, and to feel like
I was beautiful
Sharks often sense weak, injured animals and they attack them.
That’s one of the reasons why flailing around in the water is so dangerous.
And it’s hard not to love someone who said so many times that
Your love was keeping them alive.
He fell in love with a girl across the bridge,
Because no one in a fifty mile radius would love him
He had to find someone that no one else knew
A brand new slate
That his list of ex-girlfriends couldn’t taint and steal away
I wonder what he’ll say the next time he is bored and lonely
I wonder how many times he will apologize
I wonder if she tastes my blood when she kisses him
I wonder if she knows all the ghosts he left behind
Half rotting girls still trying to find their pieces
I was a vessel for his love
A doll for him to poor his insecurities into
Someone for him to look at, for someone else to say they loved him.
I kept saying
I do not exist for you, I do not exist for you, I do not exist for you
Because I was starting to not believe it
For six months I felt like I was dead
That the world was stuck in loop so that my afterlife would be the same
Wake up. Don’t eat. Try to listen to music. Paint your face. Go to class. Try to pay attention. See that nice boy in the back of your class with the glasses and try to fall in love just to see if you can do it. Go home. Don’t eat. Don’t sleep. Repeat.
He comes back, holds you close when you cry, tells you that you are alive, kisses you like you are made of thin glass, tells you that you are worthy of this world, laughs at your jokes, tucks you in at night
Keeps you a secret, tells his mother that you’re just friends, tells his new friends that you were the crazy ex-girlfriend, tells Pam that you two were on again off again nothing now so don’t worry about a thing.
He leaves. Wake up. Don’t eat. Try to listen to music. Paint your face. Go to class. Try to pay attention. See that nice boy across campus with the glasses and try to fall in love just to see if you can do it. Succeed ever so slightly. Go home. Don’t eat. Don’t sleep. Repeat
Repeat until you find the words to say to strangers, when hugs aren’t so bad, when you can be in the middle of a crowded party without panicking, when you can talk to that boy with the glasses and feel okay, when you can fall asleep, when you stop dreaming of fucked up kids, when you can eat again, when you can breathe again, when music means something again, repeat and repeat and repeat.
Seven times.
It took me seven damn times to come to where I am now.
Healed. Loved. Happy. Healthy.
Alive.
Here.