Toxins.
I remember one Christmas
you threatened to kill yourself
over the phone,
you told me you would hack
all of my email accounts
and send my teachers
vile messages,
you told me you knew how to
ruin my life, and it turns out
you weren't wrong.
And that time
the Red Cross sent me a letter
telling me the first time they
tested my blood it said I was
positive
for hepatitis C, but when they
ran it back through it came out
negative, that the machine
probably malfunctioned
but they wouldn't be able to
use it, and you contacted someone
I kissed once to let him know
"out of courtesy,"
thinking he'd tell you something
different, but he didn't.
That's what our love was like,
me the universal donor,
you the universal recipient.
You told me once
that you knew I was telling
the truth about where I'd been,
because in your psychology class
you learned that when people
are lying, they usually look
down, but
when they're telling the truth,
they look up.
Years later, in a psychology class
of my own, I learned
the warning signs
of abuse.
There was a time
I couldn't take a nap in my own
bedroom, without you thinking
I was off fucking
someone else;
when asking about my day was
an investigation instead of
a conversation;
when a missed call
meant
I was busy
keeping secrets from you.
I should have had you
committed
to more than just
memory.
