A Broken Smile

Extracting thoughts

of you from my brain

is like pulling teeth-

painful,

something one hopes to avoid,

and generally easier with a bit of anesthesia.

You've been locked in a box in the corner of my mind

collecting dust.

I tried to throw away the key,

but this proved a far more difficult task than expected.

Instead, I held on to the skeleton key,

knowing one day I may need to access

the painful memories I've filed away.

It's right here in the tiny pocket of my jeans.

It rubs me raw from within its fabric prison.

An unforgettable reminder that you exist,

that these memories are real,

not just a terrible fever dream.

At the dentist, the box burst open.

Memories hurled their way through the time and space I set between that box and the front of my mind.

It was surprisingly bittersweet

to have the dentist file down my chipped front tooth.

It was a constant reminder,

every time I looked in the mirror,

that chipped tooth was a testament to everything I'd survived from you.

And now it's gone.

Yet it hasn't erased the vibrant memory of its origin.

If anything, removing it felt like denial that the transgression ever transpired.

If it weren't for the hospital records,

and that damned chipped tooth,

I would have believed it never happened,

especially once the black eye healed.

But it's gone. And technically, so are you.

You still exist, not just in the world,

but in that ragged locked box

where I hide my pain.

Sometimes I feel as though I'll never escape you,

even though you stopped hunting me years ago.

I've compartmentalized you into a sad story I tell to close friends,

devoid of any emotion,

it feels like someone else's words.

Part of me feels like that couldn't have possibly happened to me,

it's all so surreal,

the tolerance I had for your blatant abuse and homicidal tendencies.

But in truth,

there's nothing more real to me.

You've inspired me, in a strange and awful way,

to help people in situations like the one you created for me.

Despite my constant feelings of helplessness,

it was your attempt to render me helpless

that showed me my true strength.

I find myself choosing to get lost

in this big world, in big ideas,

but it's just to keep myself from peeking into that box.

To delay the inevitable and desperate desire

to comprehend the incomprehensible.

There have been endless futile attempts on my end

to try to make sense of how your actions could so strongly deviate from your words.

Maybe I'm afraid of the pain

that comes from accepting

that you never really loved me.