9-18

I looked at your face last night, Dorian, and I did not feel anything.

No drop in the pit of my stomach. No swelling blackness behind my eyes. No frantic urgency. No desperation. No anger and loss.

I did not feel anything.

I remember seeing your face for the first time. I thought it was a nice face. Good hair, good smile. You were wearing bright colors and you hugged me, and I thought you were a little shorter than I expected, and your eyes were rather too close together, and your nostrils were strangely pinched, but overall, it was a good face. It was a face I didn't mind looking at.

And then I fell in love with you and that face became so beautiful to me. I stared at it in wonder. I traced the lines and imperfections and I thought myself so lucky to have them. You didn't like when I touched your face too much, but how could I help myself? Everything about it was so incredible because it was yours and you were mine and you let me touch your face even though you didn't like it.

Now I see your photo and it is the face of a stranger. It is a pleasant face. It's a concerning face. It worries me, how deceptive that white smile can be. Those close-set eyes and tight nostrils became a metaphor, a symbol. You keep everything close and tight. Your very body is built to hide things from others.

My throat is scratchy today from talking across the water. I am a quiet person but to speak of you made me loud. To let the words come out and have the wind whip them away, they are gone now. I've said the words over and over in my own head, but to speak them aloud, that has freed them. I will never be able to find the right words to fully express how deeply you betrayed me, but I no longer feel I must. I spent so much time picking and choosing what I will say to you when you come back, I lost sight of what matters. That you won't dare come back. That I couldn't have you if you did.

I understand now the concept of burning bridges. You tried to keep the fires low, keep yourself an exit back to us, but you're a selfish man and now they're just smoke and ash.

To speak of you aloud is to hear how cruel you were to me.

Yes, cruel. You are a cruel man. You are a selfish, grasping individual.

You hated how I made you feel because that is who you truly are. You were so angry that I made you feel mean, but you are a mean, small man. You were cruel to me. You played with my mind and you made me feel small and nervous and crazy.

I am an island, I am a volcano, I am a wild creature. I scared you. I overwhelmed you. You admired me and you wanted to own me and you, in your smallness, misunderstood what that means.

You cannot tame a wild creature by being cruel to it. You only make her more wild. The more tightly you wound me around your fist the more wild I became, and now I must pull apart my strings and undo the damage you inflicted.

I can no longer be the animal biting her own tail and tearing out her hair. I have been freed of my cage.

I will wander alone or in my pack, until someone reaches out to me. Until someone kneels and holds their hand still and speaks to me gently.

I am sad, that I let you make me into this, but I feel my strength coming in through my marrow, and I sense the needles of my compass swinging back into place. I move forward, forward. I am not afraid, like you. I am not unsure, like you. I am not weak, like you. I let you convince me I was, for a time, but that did not change me. Now I look down at you from the burning bridge in contempt, and I walk on through the flames.

What you will be no longer matters, because you chose to be cruel. Who you are no longer matters, because you hid behind lies. Who you love no longer matters, because you will only seek to crush them to your will until they snap and lash out and leave you and I feel sad for them, but they make their choices too. I made mine.

I let myself be stupid because I had never been stupid before, and I fucking hated it. I made the wrong choice, loving you. Being stupid was not fun, it was destructive. You and your pinched face and your false words and false smile are a pleasant grinning force that swept through me and tore me into pieces, but I have been a million million pieces before, and I always rebuild.

You will keep sweeping through, seeking, never stopping your damage, but I stay still and I rebuild and I know now I am safe from you, I am free of the pain you inflicted and the ruin you left, and I am free of the anxious small angry person you made me.

It is my curse to carry these words within me, when I so wish I could express them to you, but I know it does not matter. You would not hear them anyway, and now the wind and the water have carried them away, and I cried but it felt good to cry, poison bleeding from me, and the words are gone and you are gone and thank fucking god my nightmare is over.