Awake, not entirely broken

I was seduced into writing pretty for you. I shook the cobwebs off the old pages and pulled out my best words. I dressed them in lace and swathed them in colour for you. I tumbled them softly onto pristine backgrounds and arranged them neatly for the pleasure of your eyes.

I told myself to give myself time to love myself. I told myself to wait and expect only beauty and truth. And I did. I wrote you letters and pretended that they might be of use later. I saved our correspondence in a heart-shaped box adorned with the freshest flowers.

Flowery words that withered and soured over time and began to smell putrid. Words that bled through the pages over time and began to stink raw. A box that began to fray and come apart at the edges over time, spilling its contents covered in ooze and writhing in pain, fetus-shaped on the bedroom rug.

And so it is, with most everything that’s borne of selfish drive. I repent and resent that I can manage no more prettiness. I sick my worst words now, only for you. Utterances stifled with disdain and overrun with loss are in ruinous flow now for you. My lowest most bilious words now to disown you.

And I finally see the actual beauty of it all.