Spam Folder
I hate that I still check my spam folder
like hope is something
that can be accidentally filtered.
Like your name might be sitting there,
buried among strangers
and scams,
waiting for me to rescue it.
I hate that you remind me of my abuser.
Not because you are him.
You aren’t.
But because alcohol changes the shape of your face
and the temperature of your voice,
and suddenly I am standing
in a room I know too well.
Dr. Jekyll.
Mr. Hyde.
A man I love
and a man I have to protect myself from
wearing the same skin.
I never know who will answer
when I say your name.
Will it be you?
Or the version of you
that lies?
The version that drinks
and tells me it isn’t drinking.
The version that says
everything is fine
until everything is on fire.
The version that provokes
until I react,
then uses my reaction
as proof that I am the problem.
The version that twists my words,
keeps score,
and makes cruelty
sound like honesty.
The version that is vindictive,
manipulative,
and so certain he is right
that my reality
becomes something
he can argue away.
The version that hurts me
and still finds a way
to make himself
the victim.
The version that makes me question
whether I imagined
the person I fell in love with.
The version I learned
to protect myself from.
I hate you.
I hate that I can write those words
and still miss you.
I hate that my hands
still reach for my phone
as if they haven’t learned
what my heart already knows.
I hate that some part of me
is still waiting.
For an apology.
For sobriety.
For the man I thought you were.
I hate that I ever loved you.
Because loving you
made leaving you
feel like tearing something living
out of my own chest.
And maybe that’s the cruelest part:
I can hate what you did to me
and still mourn
the person I loved.
I can know
I was never safe with you
and still miss
being loved by you.
I can block your number
and your email
and still check my spam folder.
As if somewhere in there,
between the advertisements
and the lies,
there might be
one message
from the man
I thought you were.
But there isn’t.
There is only you.
And now I know
the difference.
Comments