day 13 challenge

a letter to someone who has hurt you...well by golly gee whiz...this couldn't have come at a better time.


i will leave the salutations out because i believe we've gotten past the point of formalities. we met each other at a crossroads.  and though i understand it's hard to walk away from something that feels right even when you're not ready, i don't believe that's an excuse for your intolerable behavior.  in your proclaimed effort to spare my feelings, you have only caused me more grief.  your lies, your omission and your blatant disregard for my feelings makes it hard to believe that you have any.  you've taken full advantage of my unconditional love while your love is filled with discrepancies disguised as happy times.  though i appreciate who you've been to me and what we've gone through together, the fact remains that you have not earned the love that i continue to pour out from the very depths of me.  i keep seeing a man i love instead of a man i once loved but it's so hard to separate the two when they wear the same face, when they have the same skin and when their lips are so identical, i feel like i'm kissing reflections. 

i wanted to be friends after i took my space from you. i wanted to be the bigger person because i had convinced myself that having feelings for someone who hurt me had somehow made me less than. it certainly did not, but i know that now, i didn't know that then.  and even when we agreed on friendship, you forgot that friendship included the very principles our relationship was based on - trust, loyalty and compassion. most of which you didn't get right in the relationship and as a result, this friendship is lacking.  it's your fault because you do or should i say don't do these things willingly, but it's my fault for even tolerating them.


i admit, i said and did things that were irrational.  sometimes i wish i could apologize but i meant every bit of it.  i wanted you to pay for every tear, for every nightmare, for every moment i had to question, for every time you saw me naked, literally and figuratively. i wanted you to pay for the time i spent in fidelity because i heard that a woman's virtue is a man's greatest glory and in my mind you deserved that. i wanted you to pay for everything i lost trying to find my way with you. i wanted you to pay for the nauseous feeling in my stomach when i got the phone call that changed both of our lives. i wanted you to pay for things that were invaluable, lost but never forgotten. and i wanted you to pay for the time it took for my friends to put me back together again because you left me in a million pieces in an apartment i no longer had the key to. 


for the record, i am not bitter or upset. this is not a movie and there is no angry black woman, just a woman who was lied to one good time.  instead, i am simply disappointed. do not get these emotions confused and don't believe for a second that i want to wallow in a pain that i'm somehow distorting.  i didn't make this up in my mind.  you were there, every single night. you loved me. you held me. you called me. you were a part of me.  your scent was painted on my flesh so fresh that i could close my eyes and still see you standing there in front of me.  i was a song your instruments played.  my body was simply an imprint of your own.  so i didn't make these last two years up, i made these last two years with you.  yet and still, i wish you well because i love you that much.  and even though i would never wish what you put me through on my worst enemy, sometimes i secretly wish that everything you love crumbles in front of you and falls at my feet. so then, i could at least show you how hard it is to put a million pieces back together again.


thank you for loving me but hating me would have been just the same.