An Ode to You

I can't keep doing this.  I want to hurt myself to take away my emotional pain I so often feel.  Calling me a bitch isn't love.  Blaming me for every little thing isn't love.  I can't take much more of this pain.  

I have been working on myself for months out of respect to you and myself.  I take all the angry and hateful things you say to me and push them away, no blame.  It's just what you do when you're upset, you don't really mean it.  I'm attending therapy Wednesday because it's what you think I should do, although I'm sure I need it too.  I have been working on remaining calm and trying to have nice civil conversations: I ask you what has made you upset or what you want to do.  I care more about our relationship than the fights, enough to say sorry even when I don't know why or feel it's me.  But what have you done for me for the better?

Have you forgotten all the nights and mornings I've comforted you when you're sobbing and missing him?  The time when you ran away from me and were threatening something horrible... you wouldn't tell me where you were; you didn't trust me.  "It wasn't about you."  Oh yeah?  Who went running across campus sobbing, searching for someone to help me find you.  Who spoke to the cops with a breaking heart, trying to help you because you wouldn't let me?  Who couldn't sleep because she was so afraid?  By the time I got to sleep, you called at four to tell me you were on your way because you couldn't sleep, so I stayed awake absolutely petrified of what you were going to do or say when you got here.  Those two hours were filled with tears and panic attacks, but also frozen in my bed waiting in fear.  I thought you were going to kill yourself at my door.  I think that was the most traumatic thing I've ever been through.  Who waited for you to come back to school after you learned what he did, panic attack after panic attack, not ready for what I was supposed to do or say.  

I don't want to be here anymore.  I'm in so much pain but I'm addicted to you.  Sometimes things are good.  Sometimes we are happy.  Sometimes it's not hard to tell you, "I love you."  But even after everything, I still love you, and I wait for you to love me too.  I'll keep fighting for you.

And thank you to the four people who comforted my tear soaked face.  You didn't have to, but you did-- I owe you.