The hangman isn't supposed to say 'Ti amo'

October 13, 2008:

Your fist never hit me
and yet your words
left stab wounds in my soul
as you twisted the blade
in every sacred corner
in every hope and dream
without mercy.

I did not know it at the time
but you had employed me
to build my own gallows
You had a noose around my soul;
I had only to build the platform and frame
from which I'd hang

I came close to laying
the finishing touches
of the structure
that would kill my spirit
that you had designed
and packaged in words of love
and I had naively trusted
handing over the keys to my heart

For years you whittled down
my scrappy resolve
Did you choose me because I was strong
and challenged you?
Or was my strength
an accessory you hadn't ordered
but accepted as part of the package?

I underestimated your hypnotic power
and overestimated my ability
to protect what was sacred,
to survive the siege on my soul
to keep track of how I was changing,
dying slowly.

Your "guidance" brainwashed me
Your expectations drained me
Your mockery humiliated me
Your anger frightened me
into a wide-eyed schoolgirl.

For a minute, I believed
the fault was all mine.
That you were all good
and I was all bad.
I passed over the ways
you had wronged me
because you had convinced me that
I had lost the right to speak up.

But since when is a relationship
only one person's criticisms toward the other?

There are times I've wondered
if there's not some way to work it out or save it
but then I ask myself:

Aren't you more alive now than before?
Aren't you more 'you' than before?
Aren't you less scared than before?
Aren't you more at peace than before?

Would you want to live with
the noise in your head?
the fear in your heart?
the insecurity and emptiness in your soul?
shuffling your feet to his drum beat
instead of dancing freely to your melody?