It

I thought about it once. Just once, but for almost a whole year.
Plans that I didn't even know I wanted were falling into place in my head. A future, a life, a home.
I thought about names, the places we would go, things we would talk about, things we would do.

It became deeply entrenched in my heart, this idea of it that I thought we were both on board with.
But it was all a farce. Well intended lies to keep tears from my eyes.
I think back still, to that almost year. I think about the tears that were bound to come either way and wonder.

How deeply entangled, detailed, hopeful it was. I can still remember the names, the places, the things we would do. I can still feel the sting on my cheeks from all the smiling I did.

It wasn't nearly as perfect as it all sounds. Not even close. Hind sight is often 20/20 but sometimes it's blurry and edited for adult content. Hind sight blurs the ugly, the billboard signs I missed, the way it really was.

It has damaged me in a way that causes me to withhold and withdraw in such an instinctual way I'm not sure who I really am in relationship to it anymore.
Because no matter who it is, I always wonder when the farce will end. When the truth will come out, when it will end with me alone feeling foolish.
I'm trying to not be jaded. I'm trying to not be "that girl" but it's becoming harder as it gets farther behind me.
No longer feeling foolish about falling for the farce, I only feel foolish for still being affected so deeply by it.

Seeing him still affects me. I don't want it to. I don't mean it to. There was this moment that I looked over and felt so detached, so disconnected from myself that I felt what it could be like to not be so affected. But then a brush of the leg, the sideways smile and I was reconnected to it.

What's it been over a decade?
It still smarts like it was four minutes ago
We only influenced each other totally
We only bruised each other even more so

How long can a girl be shackled to you
How long before my dignity is reclaimed
How long can a girl stay haunted by you
Soon I'll grow up and I won't even flinch at your name

-Flinch


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Your Woman
Wrap Me Up
Broken Things