and the only thing I can think is that I am going to die alone. Never experiencing a healthy happy relationship. And that I never was able to show you how I felt about you.

Once upon a time a less-than-stranger-less-than-friend friend described me as someone who lives perpetually with exclamation points hovering over her head. And for years I was that woman: excited; open; hopeful.

But two abusive lovers in a row really takes it out of a grrl.

It's funny-- not funny haha but funny interesting-- to think about how jealous you were of her; how much you hated her and how much you punished me for that... because in the end, you were both the exact fucking same. You both tried to contain me; repress me; get me to be less than I am. She did it by pretending I didn't exist. Distance and withholding were the outlines of her subtle but consistent abuse. It still surprises me when I meet one of her close friends who has never even heard my name... And you did it by yelling or storming out or locking yourself in the bathroom or ghosting.... Yours was the long con of constant monitoring of my actions and subtle if subconscious manipulation so I was afraid to go out or even have friends.

I promise I won't do it again....

At least she never fed me that bullshit Hallmark Channel line. At least she finally told me she couldn't connect. She couldn't love me. She could never really be in love with me... But still, you would lash out. And then, "I'm sorry. I won't do it again..." and even the even more sickening "You made me do this," because even though those weren't your exact words, you always danced around them claiming that I never stuck up for you or some other lie of a similar vein.

And after years of this, I have become what someone recently called me: a tight bud. Not a fabulous fucking flower but this wound up bud, afraid to let go and just open.

I want to remember what it was like to have exclamation points hovering over my head, before you and before her and her and her. I want to remember how I felt before I lived in this desert wasteland of panoptic queers. I want to let go of this image of our wedding, our marriage, our life together. I want to let all of your lies go-- that you won't do it again; that you love me- and just open. I want to open to the possibilities and to love. 

I want to be what I am on the inside and what I know I can be: A fabulous fucking flower.