I Wish You Had Been All Bad

I wish you had been all bad.

God,

that would make this easier.

I wish there were no mornings

you put medicine in my hand

because you knew

I would forget.

No “have you eaten today”?

No “you’re beautiful baby doll”

No electric between our kisses

No hours of getting lost in nothing but conversation.

And the magnetic pull of our hands on each others hips.

I wish you had never learned

how to take care of me.

My soft voice

My fresh haircut falling into your hands.

My tell me something’s.

The way my chin cupped your shoulder

Like a sock so worn in.

It fit just right.

Because now

I have to teach myself

not to confuse being taken care of

with being controlled.

And I fucking hate that.

I hate that I still remember

the softness first.

Before the hundred phone calls.

Before the anger.

Before the lies.

Before the jolt.

Before the ping pong emotions

again

and again

and again

and again—

Until your love

looked less like missing me

and more like making sure

I could never disappear.

You held me

like a fist holds something precious—

so terrified of losing me

you forgot

you were crushing me.

I wish you had been all bad.

But you weren’t.

You were deep.

Jesus Christ,

you were deep.

You didn’t just meet me.

You excavated me.

You found things inside of me

I had spent years burying

and sat beside them

like an old Mimaw in her rocking chair..

calm and letting the world pass by.

You saw the dark in me.

And you didn’t run.

Do you understand

what that did to me?

To be seen like that?

To have somebody look

at everything you are ashamed of

and stay?

Except—

eventually

you didn’t just want to know

where the darkness lived.

You wanted the keys.

You wanted access.

You wanted every password,

every answer,

every explanation,

every piece of me

accounted for.

And when I started closing doors,

you called it abandonment.

When I stopped answering,

you called again.

And again.

And again.

When I blocked you,

you found another way in.

You took my iPad

so you could track me.

Unblocked yourself

from my phone.

Lied to me about that, too.

You walked through my door

When I merely asked for space to just be.

Once, you got so angry

you slammed on the brakes

And my head snapped forward—-

And I ran out of the car down the road crying.

and I wish

that had been the moment.

The clean moment.

The movie moment.

The moment where the music stops

and I suddenly understand:

This person is hurting me.

I don’t love her anymore.

But that is bullshit.

Because I did.

I loved you

with

    my head

          still hurting.

That’s the part

nobody tells you.

Sometimes your body knows

you are in danger

while your heart

is still calling it home.

And I made room for you

everywhere.

In my life.

In my work.

In my community.

I brought you into the things

I cared about.

I introduced you to my people

with both hands open.

Here.

Come in.

There is room for you here.

There is room.

There is room.

There is room.

Until somehow

there wasn’t room

for me anymore.

Because when you realized

I was actually pulling away

Putting on my shoes and leaving,

you didn’t just lose me.

You started rewriting me.

You went to the people

I had brought you to

and handed them

a different version of our story.

You said you left me.

You made yourself

the one who walked away.

Because your thing couldn’t

fathom anyone knowing

the darkness that fed your control.

The kind of darkness

that blows out every candle in the room

and then asks

why you’re afraid of the dark.

You lied about still seeing me

while asking me

to lie to others about seeing you.

You lied about your anger.

You blamed me for your deregulation.

Said “it’s just me that caused this”.

“It was all my fault”.

That I deserved it.

“If you’d just act right”.

Gaslighting and manipulation

were two old friends you’d have dinner with often.

But we all know now that when someone

puts up a boundary

You call it bullying.

Its everyone else’s fault.

Any excuse to look good.

A narcissist with no self awareness.

And somehow

I became the villain

in a story

where I was still learning

how to say:

Please let me go.

Then I started finding

all the missing pieces.

The never having roots.

Easier to prey upon the kind when you move to a new town.

Because nobody can fact check your being.

And then I started discovering more…

And more.

The years unaccounted for.

No college stories.

No old lover pictures.

No trail of living.

No inside jokes of friends past.

No evidence of a life lived.

The education

that wasn’t what you said it was.

How do you lie about something like

that to a professor?

Wait. Hold up.

The better question is, how do you lie about something like that to the girl you wanted to start a family with?

As if I wouldn’t find out?

And what were we supposed to do-lie to the kids?

Continue the cycle of harm we’ve spent our lives trying to escape from?

Fuck you.

How do you say you care about a

community when you blatantly lie to it intentionally?

How do you say you do all the work when you are never present?

Good fucking bye.

Did you think you hid it well?

It wasn’t karma or coincidence.
It was the truth
finally learning your address.

And this time,
when it knocked,
there was nobody left
for you to blame
for answering the door.

There was no evidence of kindness or love in your past.

Just a scroll of damage done.

An envelope filled with lies.

Extra postage definitely needed.

And every new truth

made me question

an old memory.

That might be

the cruelest part.

Because now

when I remember you

putting medicine in my hand,

I don’t know

which version of you

I’m remembering.

I don’t know

what was love.

What was fear.

What was tenderness.

What was possession.

What was you.

What was the person

you needed me to believe you were.

And still—

I miss you.

Fuck.

I miss you.

There are days

I want the impossible version of you back.

The woman with the medicine.

The woman asking if I ate.

The woman calling me beautiful.

The woman who could sit beside

the ugliest parts of me

and hand them tea

and a blanket.

I want her back.

But I am finally beginning

to understand

she does not come alone.

If I open the door

for her,

The lies

walk in behind her.

The manipulation walks in.

The control walks in.

The anger.

All of you

comes through that door.

And I cannot keep loving you

by cutting you into pieces

and only remembering

the ones

that didn’t hurt.

So I wish you had been all bad.

I wish I could hate you.

I wish hearing your name

didn’t make some stupid, loyal part

of my heart

turn its head.

I wish leaving you

had made me stop loving you.

It didn’t.

I love you.

And I left you.

I miss you.

And I don’t want this anymore.

I remember your tenderness.

And I remember being afraid.

Those sentences

do not cancel each other out.

Maybe that’s the hardest truth

you ever taught me:

someone can make you feel

more loved

than you have ever felt

and still not know

how to love you

without hurting you.

So no—

I don’t need to pretend

you were a monster.

That would be easier.

I just need to stop pretending

the girl who reminded me

to take my medicine

was somehow different

from the girl

I had to escape.

She wasn’t.

She was you.

And I loved you.

God,

I loved you.

I just finally understood

that loving you

did not mean

I had to survive you.

(I wonder what excuses you’d make up for the truth now. Wonder what stories you’ll tell the people you continue manipulate. Or if you’d finally own up to your harm? Nahhh).  Who’s the healed one now? You never did the work-you just painted a picture and thought people wouldn’t question its originality.  You had it all wrong—-you didn’t deserve me.  Lover, do not call me anything but right.

That’s Dr. Mac to you, and I have receipts.