a thousand endings

It was just that I made a self-destructive choice, and I didn't want to talk about it.

And I felt stupid, for falling in love and being tossed aside a week later. Because I couldn't make him love me back. Because I felt somehow that I should have known already that I'm not someone to inspire passion.

Because the night I met him, I knew he could wreck me, and I chose it.

Because I kept talking to him, nightly, even knowing how he didn't feel, nestling into the comfortable web of his words, even though I knew I was offering myself up for injury twice.

A decade later, I keep doing this, allowing a man to be my best friend. My epidemic. My sweet little contagion.

By now, I should know better. When I can hear my tiny disasters creeping up the front steps, I should greet them and breathe, invite them inside. I shouldn't flinch when the walls begin to crumble.

I know what happens when a man who doesn't love you takes up residence in your heart, how fragile it is. I know that sometimes, suddenly, he'll decide to love you. But usually, you wait, knowing one day that you will look down and find his little space in your heart vacated, all the windows boarded.

Nailed-up little heart. The hammer in my hands.