Broken

I hoped the humble excuse of city lights that welcomed me home as the bus I sat in crossed over the bridge of artificial gold paint would push away the sorrow within me.

But those lights did not tug the corners of my lips upwards as they did several times before.

Nor did the mistletoe and twinkling tiny bulbs criss-crossed overhead.

The me that yearned for a great love she had read about a hundred times over on the acrylic-stained carpet of her bedroom must be appalled by the broken girl sitting here now. This girl pretends to be satisfied with fleeting moments of false joy in order to forget about the loneliness she feels inside and fears will last with her forever.

This girl doesn't believe she’ll find the love she’d hope for.

But she tries, still.

She hopes that if she envelops those around her with the love she wants to receive that it will come back tenfold.

But to give and to not receive一it is torture upon oneself.

I hide my loneliness behind a man who will not fight for me to stay in his life.

I shower him with compassion that drips from the wounds I inflict upon myself in order for him to come back for more. Drink up my blood, sweet as honey.

I kiss him with the lips tinted with promises of nothings and hope that these promises won’t be broken like the many he’s broken before.

I caress him with the fingers dried deep rouge from the heart I tugged out from within me and hid away in order to withstand the pain from this false something I choose to torture myself with.

I can still hear my heart, beating it’s slow dying beats, it beats in hopes for something we both know will not come.

How can it? When the man who I ruin myself for but do not love sees me as a fleeting moment to satiate his desires whether it be physical or emotional?

How can it? When he wonders so little about why the girl that stands in front him has fingers stained of her own dried blood? Or lacks a racing heartbeat as he lays his head on her chest? Or of the scars that have begun to scab over?

How can it be when it’s so clear she’s deteriorating and he simply stares at the artificial vines that hang from her abode after they satisfy one another’s savage desires?

There comes a time when a spring runs dry, I am his spring for now, and my time is near.

I don't want it to be near. I do not love him. But I want him.

He does not give me all that I want, but I stay with the fantasy he will.

He is my sorrow. He is my joy.

But my pain lies deeper than him. I was broken before I fixated on him.

How can something so utterly broken ever be fixed?