I think I'm okay most days. Then I remember. It doesn't hurt when my tongue is bitterly recounting the things that you did to friends....

That's a lie. It still hurts. I'm just able to push it to the back of my mind, brush it off as a joke.

I'm known for my fucked up sense of humor. People actually really like that about me. You never did. You always rejected my love of the macabre, hated that I was different. You almost broke the part of me that desired to be different. It scared you so much that you felt the need to belittle and criticize until I hated who I was. Thoughts like that hit me when I'm alone. Ive been okay for awhile now.

So why am I crying over you again? My head is caught up in the rush of memories, tumbling over eachother to capture my attention. The happy ones are there: The feeling of you holding me close to help me sleep. The way you made sure I stayed hydrated when I drank. The time you told me you'd rearrange the cosmos to make me happy, then went on to explain how'd you do it.

But none of those can exist without the looming cloud that was the bad: The way you'd shove me off the bed when I slept too restlessly The reason I felt the need to drink as much as I did around you The time you told me you didn't like girls who's stomachs pooched out over their underwear.

I could go on listing the bad. Some of the bad I didn't recognize as such. I thought it was normal for someone to want me to be skinny so I could be beautiful. You saw me as something that was junk, but salvageable. I believed you. I'd spent my whole life being told I was not only junk, but unsalvageable. The fact that you saw some use in me was the best thing that I had felt. It was close enough to acceptance that I mistook it as such.

My bad.

Always telling me to dress more normal. You knew about my issues, the way people had teased me, how self conscious I already was..... It takes me even longer to get dressed now than it used to, but not because of my sensory.

Telling me to try and blend more with the world, stop fighting the norm. That's who I was. I was a fighter, a warrior. Socially awkward, scared, but alive. Now I'm afraid to call people, or speak up when someone gets my order wrong. I just deal, like you taught me.

Encouraging me to "get healthy". I limited myself to 500 calories daily. I worked out even when my body ached from lack of nutrition. I cried every time I ate too much in one day. I didn't realize that booze had calories too. I gained weight and an addiction.

Pushing my boundaries of physical affection. I wanted to wait until my wedding night. You wanted pleasure.

My needs never did take preference.

I tried so hard to be low maintenance. Yet you continually told me how difficult I was to deal with. You don't deal with someone you love. You accept them, Wholly and fully. You never accepted me. Why did you say you loved me? Were you so broken that you didn't understand you loved what you thought I could be, and not how I was? You wanted to put technology in my brain, make me your science project. Why was I never able to convey that my issues are as much a part of me as my arms or my legs? Maybe they make things hard, but they are me, not some scuff mark to be polished away. I miss the security I had with you. I miss having someone's arms I could always fall into. I miss the passion. I don't miss the hitting. I don't miss the belittling. I don't miss the sex. I don't miss you. I miss the innocence.