facebook, man, it’s a danger zone.
i waste the time i have just scrolling and stopping,
checking up on friends i haven’t talked to in a while,
and sifting through pictures of my college years,
all the fights and the tears and the fear that
success wouldn’t be
what i wanted it to be,
and i check out the posts made by all of my friends –
stop.
That is not a name i recognize
but it’s a face that i recognize
the name has changed but the face is the same,
he is hiding in plain sight.
so really nothing has changed.
stop.
we have thirty four mutual friends,
plus one —
the first person i told about him
and about that night.
the first person who lied
as she “sympathized” with me.
i called her my best friend,
went to war against her enemies
and always had her back in battle –
well, this is the end of that line of fighting.
stop.
he’s holding a tube of Tom’s Simply White
which means we now use the same toothpaste.
and my stomach gets tight,
because what he puts in his mouth
is the same thing i clean mine with
each night before i fall asleep
into dreams of his teeth and my blood
again.
stop.
we have posted not one but
five of the same articles and news stories
about the Baltimore “riots,”
posting #blacklivesmatter
and standing on the same side of a cause.
stop.
but he is holding a gun.
he is holding a gun,
and it is not a toy and i stop breathing
and my shoulders are touching my ears because
he is holding a gun
and it is terrifying enough to know that he did what he did to me
without one.
stop.
it was a word he understood but did not listen to
stop
not the first time or the seventh
stop
so i counted ceiling tiles and played music in my head
stop
i can’t listen to that album anymore
and now, when i look in the mirror that hangs above my door,
he is there, and i hate myself
until i cry and let it out,
let the sludge that he left there under my skin
bleed out in the open
until i am empty of him
and everything he ever was before
and everything he still is right now.
out of those thirty five mutual friends,
ten of them, yes ten, know what he did
and took his side.
so maybe, today, it is the perfect time
for a cleanse.
to sweep out the dirt that lies in the shadows,
and start planting life in the light.
green light,
go
i like my eyes
go
im smart as hell
go
i love my thighs
go
it’s not my fault
go
i love myself
go,
go,
go.
the musings of a miss 