shatteredmemoriesofroses

[shatteredmemoriesofroses]

Stolen Choice

Long ago a choice was stolen from me.

Something I know I would’ve chosen to do but couldn’t back then.

I was barely ready to even admit to myself that I liked girls.

I didn’t get to decide when and how to tell others.

I only told one person who told her who told everyone.

The day before she found out was the last day I ever felt okay.

I’ve spent every day since wishing, begging, praying that somehow, someway I could change the past and have no one ever find out.

I wish no one knew that I like girls.

I also know that maybe if that hadn’t happened I would’ve eventually been ready to tell.

I want to be able to have made the choice to come out myself.

I’ll never get that choice now.

I’ll never be ready for people to know now.

It was so long ago but I relive it always.

I’ll remember it forever.

I’ll never forget how my stomach fell and how I wanted the ground to absorb and never release me.

Every day I see reminders of it.

A single word can send me back.

My mind entrapping me inside of the past, forgetting people I know now but didn’t know back then.

Another betrayal of my trust, the situations similar, always by the first person I tell.

This time I didn’t cry, this time I didn’t want to die.

This time I was mad, this time I was hurt, not for the present me but for the younger me, the one who lost her choice.

This time I took the power from the new one to tell everyone I like her, I told everyone first.

I don’t know why but I thought somehow that would prevent her from knowing.

Somehow I thought it could fix me.

Instead, I felt every painful second of it again.

Reliving that pain made me quick to believe what I was being told.

I was told that she was being mean.

Saying things similar to the first time.

I felt the worst pain I had ever felt all over.

I felt it new and old.

The pain I felt years ago and this new pain.

It was worse.

I wasn’t sad though, I was mad.

I thought I had moved on from the hurt.

But I hadn’t, I remained that child.

Never will that child grow up, she will forever be a kid in a grown-up’s body.

[shatteredmemoriesofroses]

Voice

I never speak about this because I never could.

I think I finally found my voice.

I still feel her arm around my throat.

I still feel her hands pulling at my hair.

I hear her words blaming me for all of this.

I remember the way my stomach dropped when I realised.

Realised that she was bad.

Realised that even if I was being “annoying”, that doesn’t mean she was allowed to hurt me.

The freedom I felt when I stopped making excuses for her.

The freedom I feel now.

Sometimes I still blame myself.

Maybe if I hadn’t been who I am.

Maybe I should’ve seen it all coming.

Maybe I should’ve known.

Maybe none of this would’ve happened.

I wish I could warn my past self.

But warn her years in advance.

Warn her of everything she will face.

Ensure she doesn’t go into it unprepared.

Control the narrative, that’s what I want.

I wish I had been able to control my own life.

Control my story.

I wasn’t able to.

And now a little girl has to forever go through this all.

Because it’s not possible to control my own life.

So now my past will echo through time.

Playing out eternally on the girl I once was.

[shatteredmemoriesofroses]

Blank

I hate her.

She took everything from me.

My favourite colour, my favourite songs, my favourite ships.

Everything.

I can’t see what used to be my favourite shade of red without thinking of her,

I can’t hear some of my old favourite songs without breaking,

I can’t watch some of my favourite shows lest I remember her.

She took it all.

She took my birthday with her.

Leaving me dreading that day every year.

I had just turned 14, I thought I would be dead by morning,

I thought that I wouldn’t finish 8th grade.

I cannot shed tears when I think of it all.

I cry in my head.

My screams ricochet around my mind,

Incomprehensible beyond a dark cry,

Nonsensical screams begging for it to be over.

They don’t know that it’s over.

That it has been over for years.

She took some of the things I held most dear.

She took my favourite colour,

Red now relegated to number three.

And yet I think what if?

What if I’d never met her?

I’d still have my favourite shade of red,

And my favourite songs.

She ruined so much of what I loved.

I hate her for it.

I’ll always hate her for it.