when they ask who hurt me

i say your name

who knew your honeyed words

would prove so poisonous

who knew the paragraphs and paragraphs of texts

were sent to her too

when they ask who hurt me

i see your face

i shouldn’t have set expectations

not when i knew i had no claim on you

after all, we were “just talking”

i shouldn’t have let my hopes rise

with every soft smile, funny jibe, thoughtful question

i sailed farther and farther into an impossible reality

until there was no hope of anchor

no hope of returning to shore

it wasn’t until i saw her name on your phone

that my hull started to splinter

calm seas rose into stormy torrents

and my spine froze with every dash of icy water

i needed to eradicate myself from the situation

yet i stayed

even when my ship was vomiting seawater

halfway wrecked

i emptied bucket after bucket into the raging sea

my mind realized the ship had sunk

my heart refused to accept it

you were a lesson -

a lesson not to hope naively

not all are as good to us as those were in the past

i opened my gates to you

and you entered and decimated my city

now, they are locked and bolted

expectation was my Achilles’ heel

yet at the end of the day

the blame is on the gatekeeper

when they ask who hurt me

your name sticks in my throat

you walked past the door - your soft whisper barely counting as a knock

yet, i opened it.

i hurt myself.

-a.j.