The Great War

The breeze from the open window in my living room is cool and damp-
It’s been pouring all day.
The fan I have running helps move it through the downstairs of my apartment;
Allowing me to curl up on the couch in a fleece blanket comfortably after the heat of the last several days.
I have too much time to think.
I want to go outside and catch the rain on my face as it comes down in such perfect round drops;
I can hear it splattering against the roof of my front porch as the wind gives out a low growl.
Maybe the storm can wash away all the wreckage you left inside of me.
I never understood your brutality-
Not for a single moment.
Four years we fought in a war that nearly killed the both of us.
What were we thinking?
I should’ve packed up and left;
Should’ve bandaged the first wound and moved on but I stayed-
And I fought back.
Perhaps because I was tired of being wounded and then left to die.
I was not going down without a fight this time.
If my skin bared every scar you left on me-
I’d be unrecognizable.
But most of them are internal;
And those are much harder to see and heal than the bruises you left on my body.
I’ve convinced myself that you were a wounded animal-
And I just happened to be the one you injured in fear of being hurt before I ever hurt you.
Self fulfilled prophecy-
I’m not sure at this point you even knew what you were doing anymore.
Now I’m injured in ways I’m not educated enough to know how to heal,
And that terrifies me.
This didn’t have to be a war;
But you didn’t give me much of a choice when you stabbed your gleaming daggers right into my back and cried with your arms wrapped around me.
Hurting the ones you love is never easy.
I’ll never understand why your hatred for me was strong enough to start a war to begin with.
Neither of us won.
But at least neither of us died, either.