refracting ghosts on bathroom floors

You said you loved me
but I was nothing more than flesh
wrapped around bones
spreading myself out
like an all you can eat buffet
of desperation

You were supposed to be
the one to save me
and instead I watched the way
you drank the poison of your soul
and expected me to love it
like art

I was the denial to your indulgence
my eyes closed tight when I kissed you
so I could imagine I was somewhere else
with someone who knew
how to touch me right

Because I wanted to be loved
with a passion only dreams
seem to hold
I wanted you to see past
the darkness I wore like
body armour
as though I was readying myself
for war

And perhaps I was
ready and waiting for the bombs
to drop and shatter the delusions
I clung to like a lifeboat in the sky

Because you could never figure out
how to make me smile
and forget myself
though you never really tried
your razor wire criticisms
on my apparently lack of sunshine
sending me back into
familiar barred and blacked-out hiding places
like the ice-laced bathroom floor
I fell asleep on
on our last night together
when you got so drunk
you tried to rape me

And I knew for sure
that you didn’t love me

© Indie Adams 2015