An Unspoken Cruelty

In fields of green, where whispers softly sighed,

A lonely soul, a seeker, I resided.

I chased a ghost, a flicker in the haze,

Through endless nights and long, unending days.

My compass spun, a needle lost and wild,

A fragile map, a reckless, naive child.

I sought a shore where comfort I might find,

A port of peace to soothe my weary mind.

I found a hand, a promise in his eyes,

A shelter built of sweet, deceptive lies.

I mistook the rust for gold, the chains for grace,

And saw a hero in a vacant space.

He spoke of love, a word I didn't know,

A gentle breeze that masked the undertow.

My youthful heart, it beat a hurried drum,

So unaware of what I would become.

He was the shadow, I, the fading light,

A burning sun that swallowed up the night.

He drew the lines, then stepped across the edge,

And built a home upon a broken hedge.

The words he spoke were blades of ice and steel,

A bitter truth my wounds could not conceal.

I learned of love, not through a tender touch,

But through the hurt, that hurt that meant so much.

He wove a rope of fear and whispered dread,

A heavy shroud that settled on my head.

He cut my wings, then asked me why I'd fall,

And gave me nothing while he took my all.

I searched for strength, a way to break the bind,

But found the knots were twisted in my mind.

The prison bars were etched within my skin,

A silent scream that echoed from within.

The air grew thick, with sorrow and with shame,

As every scar would whisper out his name.

I couldn't run, the ground was far too deep,

The promises were secrets I would keep.

The only key was twisted in his fist,

A lock of pain that begged to be un-kissed.

The world outside was blurred and far away,

And I was lost inside his grim ballet.

But then a choice, a whisper from the ground,

The final truth my bleeding heart had found.

The knife he used, the one that made me bleed,

Had planted deep a final, bitter seed.

I took the blade, the one he held so dear,

And felt the cold and conquered all my fear.

The metal gleamed, a mirror in my hand,

A twisted gift, a path across the land.

I pressed the steel against my fragile life,

And knew at last, this was my final strife.

The crimson bloom that stained the silver-white,

Was not defeat, but finally, a light.

I held the pain, I cradled the despair,

I kissed the blade and breathed the poisoned air.

For in that steel, the sorrow I had known,

Was no longer his, but finally, my own.

The blade was mine, but the cut was his, a wound he gifted with a venomous kiss.

My blood poured out, a river, a flood,

and you stood there smiling, caked in my mud.

I fell to my knees, an echo of my need,

I begged you, "Please, this is a life you bleed."

But you watched me gasp and choke on the air,

and asked me, "Why do you show such despair?

This is what love is, this is what you wanted.

Your every breath with my name, you haunted."

I saw your grin, a mirror to my pain,

a harvest of sorrow from a terrible rain.

You watched me wither, watched me become thin,

and punished me for the love I held within.

You called it weakness, called it a mistake,

to ask for solace for my own heart's sake.

You said, "I don’t know what I do to make you so angry,”

yet you watched me, shattered, as I slowly drowned.

You wanted my silence, my soul to embrace,

while my very lifeblood drained from this place.

I learned to breathe without taking you in,

to close my eyes and feel your sharp pin.

The pain was the rhythm of a song I knew,

a melody of suffering, forever brand new.

I begged you to heal what you had undone,

to shield me from the blinding, burning sun.

But you only forced me to collapse, a sound like broken glass, you left me to die, alone in the grass.

You were the reason, the answer, and the way, yet

the darkness of my final day.

There’s a kind of love that feels like drowning. Not a sudden, violent submersion, but a slow, gentle sinking where the water is warm and the surface just a little too far away. That was my love for him. It was a bottomless well, and I threw myself into it, believing I was finally home.

My recklessness wasn't a choice; it was an ache. An empty space inside me that begged to be filled. I was so young, so foolish, so hungry for a connection that I mistook his darkness for depth. I saw the wounds on his soul and instead of running, I wanted to heal them. I saw his pain and wanted to be the balm, the sanctuary he'd never known. I didn't understand that some people don't want to be healed. They want to spread the sickness.

He was the emotional death I didn't see coming. The abuse wasn’t always a shout or a shove. It was a silent judgment, a look of contempt that cut deeper than any words. It was the way he’d let me pour out my heart, then casually dismiss my feelings as "too much" or "dramatic." He made me feel like my love was a burden, a heavy, unwanted weight. He punished me for needing him, for wanting the very thing he’d promised. "Why are you so emotional?" he’d say, as if my tears were an inconvenience, not a direct result of his cruelty.

I remember begging him to stop. Not with words, but with my eyes, with the way my voice would break as I tried to explain how much I was hurting. I was bleeding out, and I needed him to see it. I needed him to care. But he did nothing. He just watched.

He forced me to bleed alone, to die alone, to breathe alone. He’d leave me in the middle of a storm he had created, then come back later and act as if nothing had happened. My love, the very thing I thought would save me, became the knife that cut me endlessly. Every time I reached for him, every time I forgave him, I was just twisting the blade deeper into myself.

And at the end, the most twisted part of it all was that I held the knife. He had placed it in my hand and told me it was my fault, that my love was the problem. He made me believe that this endless pain was something I deserved, something I had to endure. So I did. I held the blade, the one covered in my own blood, and I loved it. I held it close, kissed its cold steel, and embraced the pain as if it were a lover. Because the pain, at least, was real. It was tangible. It was mine. It was the only part of him that would ever truly belong to me.

This isn't love; it's a slow, agonizing process of becoming a ghost. He was supposed to be my home, the safe harbor I'd been searching for. I built a sanctuary for us, brick by brick, with my own hands and my own heart, only to watch him tear it down with a casual indifference that felt more violent than any rage. My love was the foundation, but he made it a ruin, and then he stood in the wreckage and called it art.

He was a collector of pain, and mine was his masterpiece. He’d create a perfect storm of emotional chaos, then stand back and watch me drown in it, a detached observer of my destruction.

He didn't just hurt me; he used me. My body became a convenience, a silent form of validation for him. He would take what he wanted and then turn away, leaving me feeling hollowed out, used up. The intimacy wasn't a connection; it was a transaction. And when I reached for him, for a touch that was gentle, he would freeze, as if my affection was a foreign object, something he couldn't comprehend. He envied the love he forced me to feel, the very love he belittled. He couldn't understand it, so he had to destroy it. He saw the fire in my heart and instead of warming himself by it, he put it out.

And so, I became him. The sadness he sowed in me grew into a forest of thorns. My joy shriveled up, replaced by a deep-seated melancholy. I became withdrawn, detached, and suspicious of every act of kindness. The beautiful, reckless girl who had stumbled into his life was gone, replaced by a woman with calloused skin and a heart that was a fortress of silent despair. My ruins are because of him. The woman I am now, this broken, scarred version of myself, is a monument to his cruelty. He didn't just leave me; he left behind a landscape of desolation, and in it, I am still searching for the girl I used to be.

My heart was an open field, and I was so young, so foolish, so desperate to plant something that would grow. When he came along, he didn't even have to ask. I gave him everything—my trust, my hope, my body—as if they were nothing more than handfuls of dirt. I built a home for him in my heart, a place where he could be safe from the world, a place I wanted to believe was ours. I called him my man, my great love, even when he never called me his.

The pain he gave me wasn’t a triumphant show; it was a quiet, suffocating neglect. He didn't boast in my suffering because he didn't need to. He knew my pain was a given, an invisible consequence of his presence. He was a master of indifference. My tears didn't make him grin; they made him sigh with a weary impatience, as if my very emotions were an inconvenience. He didn't say, "Look what I've done," but his actions screamed, "Your feelings are not my problem." That was his power—the casual cruelty of simply not caring.

He used my body, not to boast to others, but as a convenience. It was a silent transaction, an unspoken agreement that my physical self was his to take, while my emotional self was a burden he refused to carry. He would take what he wanted, and then leave me alone in the wreckage, not with malice, but with a chilling apathy. I would reach for a simple touch, a gesture of connection, and he would pull back as if my affection was an unwanted thing. It wasn't that he hated the love he saw in me; he just couldn’t understand it. He wasn't a monster who reveled in my pain, but a man so hollowed out, he simply couldn't comprehend the depth of my love. He was an empty well, and I kept throwing myself in, hoping to find water.

My ruin is a monument to his absence, not his rage. He didn't tear me down; he just let me fall apart. He wasn't the blade that cut me, but the person who stood by as I bled, offering no comfort, no bandage, just the unspoken message that my pain was mine alone to bear. The girl I was, the reckless one who believed in endless love, is gone. In her place is a woman with calloused skin and a silent sorrow, still searching for the pieces of herself he so carelessly discarded.

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