Painful Memories

It’s difficult when so much of your life comes from other people.

When a fling taught you to hear every beat in a song.

When a teacher from middle school taught you how to free yourself with words.

When your entire music taste revolves around a show you saw with a childhood friend.

A favorite food tied to a memory with a cousin.

My clothing style inspired by my best friends ex girlfriend.

I feel like I am just making a collage

of the people I valued most at one time or another

and just pasting the pieces of these people

onto my body until I’m a big mixture of everything I valued.

Or at least that’s the intention.

In actuality, I’m just a mess of colorful ripped paper,

but I’ll get there one day.

It’s hard waking up with a new partner,

and having the remains of another

All over your life.

When your perfume smells like memories.

Like dinner dates

and the movies

and thirteen kisses in a row

and love that felt endless but wasn’t.

When your clothes feel like someone else’s touch.

A familiar feel that is now foreign.

I find myself changing clothes too often now.

I can’t keep that jacket.

It was his first.

I can’t handle the feel of those shoes.

They made me taller than her, and she hated it.

My skirt no longer fits right, when they loved to watch me twirl in it.

I brush my hair the same way,

but it’s shorter now.

Chopped off because she liked it long.

And dyed jet black because they all liked brunettes.

And yet, I look in the mirror and don’t see myself.

I see how I look in pictures.

I used to smile in their arms.

I used to laugh beside them,

and cry with them nearby for comfort.

And in every picture,

my eyes showed how deeply,

truly,

madly in love I was.

But now my eyes are lifeless.

I look in the mirror and I see a face I do not recognize

In hair and clothing I’ve never seen before

And I wonder how long it will take to feel like myself again.

And I wonder how long

Until this one breaks me.