The Bad Nights

You say you don't want me to be lonely and then you leave me alone on my worst nights.

The nights where even my own sobs have left me and all I can pull from my lips are small strangled gasps.

They have left to seek someone who puts up a better fight that I can, who has the strength to claw themselves off of their couches and scream. They don't want weaklings, only victims who can fight them back.

I am not a victim except for when I paint myself into one. I play hide and go seek with my own anger and count the harmful things in my house. I make lists on the bad nights.

I don't need a knight to fight for me I just need someone to hold my hands away from my face on nights like these. I need someone to hold me when I can not stop shaking and everything feels cold.

Why did you leave me alone, when the walls are closing in.