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I'm Not Scared of Getting Hurt

From the Rock Bottom Series of Old Poems

By Chelsea Z.Published 7 years ago 3 min read
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Photo by Maranatha Pizarras on Unsplash

I hit rock bottom when I was 18 years old.

I met a boy with perfect hands and

a beautiful smile,

and he ate my heart like he was starving.

I loved him so much it made me sick. Throwing up

words I could never say to someone else,

picking feelings off my skin like scabs

was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

I bled promises. I have scars

left behind from his fingertips

those nights he laid next to me and

told me I was beautiful, and

that he wasn’t used to being loved.

There will not be a next time that I have to say

I’m sorry for having a full stomach of butterflies.

Let my heart be an etch-a-sketch. Shake it empty.

Make my bones quiver with all of the sounds of tomorrow.

I will not apologize for the garden that I planted in your ribs.

Let the weeds be a reminder.

My lost flowers no longer bloom.

He left me like I was the plague

and he was scared of getting infected.

He visits me still in intangible ways.

Like when his playlist comes on the radio

and every station reminds me how much I loved

the way he spoke to me with songs.

And how I held him when every lyric made him cry

tears of cobalt blue that drown my closet,

and as I rummage around for something less nostalgic

I feel like I’m sinking in an ocean of his favourite colour

and suddenly pink doesn’t exist anymore.

I was 20 when I realized

that I was the one who was toxic.

For 4 solid years I had poison running through my veins

and I didn’t even know it,

until the man with my favourite laugh

dropped me on a corner,

and told me that he couldn’t stand the burning anymore.

And when I looked at my hands,

I could almost swear they were covered in blood.

Three months later I found myself

in the arms of another,

and still I believed that I was an exception

in a world full of rules.

Tell me now why all of the men who want to love me

are men that I don’t want to touch.

And all of the men that I want to love

don’t want to touch me,

because I don’t have an off switch

for the emotions that run so high

I can make lights flicker.

I am an electrode. Watch me set everything on fire.

Even as I was standing alone in the dark,

outside, music so loud it shook the sparks from my eyes,

and all of the hope that I had turned to ash.

For bitten fingers, cheeky smiles, cowboy boots.

With a heavy heart I found myself again

playing like a child, and

he reminded me that I still know how to laugh.

Not enough time, I believed I was different.

I could change him, make him want me,

no matter how many times he told me

no. I am not special,

nothing separates me from the hundreds

of girls walking around in pretty dresses

and heels so high they assure

her head is in the clouds.

Silence remained

when he told me he changed his mind,

and I realized that maybe

I had been chewed up and spit out

so many times, that I had been drained raw.

All I have left are words

with no meaning, too much

meaning. Said so many times

they no longer make sense.

I have left claw marks on everything I’ve touched.

My daggers have been worn

and I can’t show them how it hurts to be left behind

when they’ve become dull. Reckless. Dependent

on rock bottom, showing me nothing but comfort.

Give me wings so I can fly,

show me silver linings on clouds not gray.

Teach me how to be a bird.

I don’t want to touch the ground

ever again.

heartbreak
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About the Creator

Chelsea Z.

A warrior of sorts, since 1993.

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