Tried online dating once- didn’t make it past messaging the first person. Because “you can’t take a shit in this town without everyone knowing what you had for dinner.” I don’t date people I work with or parents in my kids’ activities. Was always told that “you don’t shit where you eat.” (I don’t know what people’s obsession is with shit, but lord help me.) I barely have time for my own activities and don’t make eye contact at the grocery store or gym. I’m on a MISSION. Blind dates… ugh. I may just be single for the rest of my life. I’m not desperate enough to lower my standards just yet. Maybe not ever. Think I’m enjoying getting to know myself. What do single women do these days once the kids move out? Don’t like cats… plants? It will have to be plants… at least there’s no shit.

I was but bones

In animated skin

My spirit long silenced

By the chest

You locked it in

One hole, two holes,

Three holes, four

I repaired the walls

I repaired the door

“If I’d have wanted to hit you,

I wouldn’t have missed.”

“It’s not abuse,

if I don’t use my fists.”

Not one single inch

Of my skin, supple and soft

Left untouched by his

Not one single place

On the whole of my body

Unseeded by him

Not one single part

Of my essence, dissected

Unread- without words

His body, though- it…

It belonged to many girls

Never fully mine

Territoriality

Makes him seek the attention

Of those women even more

Four course meal for his ego-

Soliciting advances

’Cause he loves to hear you roar

Um, yes. He is broken.

To be fair

He showed me the cracks

Long before I committed

“Fix me,” he said,

“with your magic hands.”

And I spent half my life

looking for the right bolt

I patched him

with so many parts of myself

That I became broken, too

Here, you can have my wrench

When I read what you write to her

I can feel remnants

of this afternoon’s lunch

trying to make its way out

the same way it came

Don’t kid yourself though

I’m not green with envy

This nausea rises

from the pit of my stomach

where I myself swallowed

your honey-laden arsenic years ago.

The kind of twisting one might feel whilst watching a torturer tap wooden shivs under his victim’s finger nails

Only I’m watching from behind a one-way mirror that I can’t break.

When she finally does look for your reflection

She won’t see one

because vampires don’t have reflections

I lived half my life there

So close inside them

That I nearly disappeared

There’s almost no place

I’d rather not be

I need his kind of sanctuary

Like I need a sugar coated cyanide tab

It was killing me anyway

Perhaps that poison

would have been kinder

We passed the other day, said hello to one another. You’re the new girlfriend. I’m the ex wife. I want you to feel comfortable- for that awkwardness to slip away, especially if this will be a regular thing, now. I can’t tell you this, but I worry about you often. I see all of the old patterns already. You may even know it’s happening, but you can’t stop it. You’ll wake up one day. I just hope it’s sooner than I did.

I watch from the sidelines

in silence

as all of his red flags

mascarade as roses

No interference from me-

the scorned lover of times past

I won't be the "crazy" one

but i do cringe on the inside

only anonymously throwing

my words into the wind

in hopes your virgin ears

might catch a syllable or two

as you're imbibing far too much

of his spiritual plague

Your words are on repeat

like they were my own

With a whine so potent

you're undeniably intoxicated

Sober up, Girl.