One day I’ll wake up and I won’t need to remind myself to breathe. It’ll come easily, like tracing your jaw once did. Maybe I’ll finally smile, a break in a dense, dormant ocean, and it won’t hurt. I won’t spend minutes, hours, days staring glassily into the cracked mirror I once flung the heart-adorned photo frame at that contained your caramel-coated eyes and your flaw-filled perfect smile. I will finally have a shower and let the needles of heat puncture my pores, re-opening each crevice of me that you once travelled as explorer in the savannah. I will capture bits of sunlight filtering in through the French-doors and adorn my hair with them, gently weaving them between strands of hot pink and cold black. You used to love my locks, you know. You would run your fingers through, the electric colour reflecting in those dancing eyes. I hate people touching my hair, but you, you were different. Different is good, you said to me, different is variety. I like variety, you whispered, kissing my eyelids and sweeping my collarbone like I was fine china. Is that what you wanted, variety? Is that why you got tired of me? I was different, but different becomes the same after a while. I grew on you, like mould on crumbling bricks. One day, I’ll put on some make-up and it won’t be because everyone else does, it’ll be because I don’t know if I’m pretty anymore, and there’s no one else to tell me I’m perfectly imperfect. I used to love myself, do you remember? I used to say I was gorgeous, and I knew it. You loved that I loved me. You loved me and so I loved me. I was comfortable in being me. But now I am a distant memory in myself. I look down at my fingers, my plain, shaking fingers, and I wonder whose hand I am really looking at. One day, I will put my heart up for sale once more. I will auction it off to the first person who utters the L-word. I will sell it to him carelessly, for need of adoration and acceptance. One day, I won’t remember you with pain and blood. I’ll remember you for the endless nights and crisp breaths, stolen in the heat of the kisses. I’ll remember you, though, I will. Forgive, but never forget, you said. Don’t forget who you are and where you came from. I came from the hospital, I earnestly replied. You glazed over my eyes with sudden anticipation and I was taken. One day it will be alright to fight back. I will snarl and growl and yelp at curious people, because you called me your Puppy. I can see it now, tongue lolling, saliva dripping, wagging tail, eager for a treat, forever a man’s best friend but never a good enough lover. I answered your beckoning with loyal gratitude, and you rewarded me with melancholic unknowing. One day, I will come out of the shell you have confined me to, to once again see the sights and smell the scents that I hung on to with longing. The outside world was my home, because my home was an outsider’s. The first night I went home with you, you unwrapped me like a present and carried me like wintry waves washing in on white sand. Handle with care. Because even if the outside is tough and intimidating, the inside is always hushed tones of quiet and tears. One day, you will be referred to as a period in my life, nothing more, nothing less.
One day…just not today.