It was the first time you came up in conversation by name in years.
seems like years, probably years
I always refer to you as my "shitty" ex boyfriend
as if shitty was a proper adjective
almost never use your name
over drinks was the first time I was told that it wasn't my fault
by someone who knew us both
and he said he was sorry for not saying something then, about how he didn't like you around me
and its not his place to apologize
we were children and stupid and you were manipulative and sick
I always say that we would never be who we are today if it wasn't for our past
and that our past is something that we carry with us because it is apart of us
Im wrong
the lessons our past teaches us is something to carry with you in life
not actual fragments of the past
and I carry pieces of you in my personality like fucking infected splinters
I am this person today because of my past, and the worst parts of my person are just pieces of you that I've allowed to become me.
one splinter you can ignore
but theres so many
so so many
that it becomes this constant aching that influences my decisions every day
most of the time without me realizing it, because I'm trying so hard to pretend theres nothing sore in the first place
to stop and remove all those splinters
one by one
its so consuming and sore in itself that
I ignored it
All of the selfish ways I treat people learned from you
little splinters of your larger actions
conditioned behaviors
but in that still my fault entirely
because I chose to ignore it
the ache of the splinters
and chose to look for another reason to justify my actions
to get away from you
I thought if I pretended it never happened I would get away from you forever
but nah
I just carry you with me
and never with the conscious decision to hurt
thats the difference I guess
these splinters are just what I know best
so when I dont know the answers
when I'm scared
when I'm hurt
when I'm feeling out of my own control
its a subconscious fall back on
those fucking conditioned behaviors
knowing that they hurt
but so desiring to protect myself from more hurt
that I turn it outward
never wanting to hurt those I love but always wanting to ensure
that my heart and mind will never feel that again
and the panic and fear and insecurity overrides the reasonable
and I act like those splinters of you
Trying for so long to find something to make me happy instead of trying to find out what was making me unhappy
me me me
not considering how that impacts the happiness of loved ones
actually finding things and people that made me beyond happy
content and safe
but still feeling that unhappiness in-between
then life happens and things change
and in the change I lost the ability to pretend that the soreness wasn't there
and its been eating me up
coupled with the guilt of hurting other people the same way
and the shame I feel for being a reflection of you
now I'm trying to pick out the splinters
one by one
doing all of the things
"asking for help"
but taking them out hurts
maybe not as much as they hurt going in
but it hurts just thinking about you
and remembering how much pain you made me feel every day
and then thinking that
in reflecting you I've pained people I love
and have made them think
that maybe I'm not proud of them
and that they needed to be different to be worth
constant de-valuement
and I know that feeling
I never wanted to be associated with it again and
I wonder if our mutual friend remembers this trip to Kona
he was one of the 4 with us on the long drive from Hilo
and I took your picture at Hapuna
I wonder if he noticed you telling me how much you hated me for wearing that bathing suit
because I obviously
as you said
was wearing it to fuck other guys
and how I wasn't allowed to go in the water without you
and how I couldn't sit next to our mutual friend at lunch because
I was a lying bitch that couldn't control myself
and how you insisted on getting stoned on the way home, all of the car windows rolled up
even though I asked you not too
because I didn't want to get high
and you kept blowing smoke in my face
and speeding 100 miles an hour on the empty roads
being so reckless
to scare me
because I couldn't control myself
and when we got home
and everyone parted ways, you screamed at me for hours
all night
and when I would finally start to ease up on crying and maybe barely start to fall asleep you woke me up and started yelling all over again. Just to stop me from sleeping.
and in the morning
you cried and said
how much you loved me and
you were just afraid I was cheating on you and was going to leave you
and you needed to keep me with you because you needed me
and that it was all because you loved me that much
I am ready to take every part of you out of my system
rip out every splinter
even if that means that I'm going to be raw and bloody at the end of it
I rather have little scars from every splinter then know that I still carry you with me
I googled you the other day
I think your in prison now, for something DUI and firearms
Its less then you deserve by any means.