Face down on the ground, those footsteps hurt more today and the dirt tasted ten times more foul. Each scrape and bruise against my recording skin became a tally mark to how many I let walk over me. I closed my eyes, shutting them with caked dirt and hoping to dream away that weight, to escape it. But even in those dreams did I still feel those clawed tally marks carved into my skin, did I still feel the crunch of my heart beneath each merciless footstep. Yet, when it first started, I curtsied to those walkers, I kissed them and loved them, but now I’m not sure if my legs could stand for such. To those lovers I’ll give it all, everything, until I’m stripped and naked. Until for a moment those footsteps will pause and then admire me for once.
And someone had once asked me, prying for a deep wrench within me, “What’s the part of yourself you hate the most?” Before a breath of air could trail her words, I spoke. Knowing damn well the answer then, knowing the answer as I stare at myself in the mirror. Knowing it as it harrowingly beats in my chest each second. “My heart.” And there’s not much of it now, but I’ll forever hand it over until the stitches can’t hold. Until the alcohol can’t mask the pain or until too much of it is gone to keep me living.
I couldn’t count on my fingers how many times I had tied a cherry red bow, draped across my heart, and handed it over to my dominator. Those drips of its blood lemon squeezed from unforgiving hands, wrung it like a wet towel as if my heart was nothing more than a play toy. And so bandaid after bandage, stitches after liquor, I’ll still hand it over like a toy because my ugly heart loves too hard to mind the cracks. My carpeted body forgives it, the tally marks forgive it, and while it rules my world, I’ll forgive it. Because as much as I hate that love thirsty organ, forgiveness is a beautiful thing and a chance at love, even more. And before I swallow another heaping spoonful of dirt, I’ll relish in those small moments of sweetness before the footsteps come. Because those moments are better than the bandaids and a chance at love is worth the breaking weight.
– Forever a broken, hopeless romantic
