The Story He Told

He said I changed

Said I wasn’t who I used to be

Funny how I disappeared

While he was changing me

Said I was too emotional

Too selfish, too damn loud

Then told me I should smile more

When other people came around

I learned to bite my tongue

Till I could taste the blood

Learned to call control protection

And fear another word for love

I got so good at being

Who he needed me to be

I forgot the girl

Who used to look like me

There were cracks across the mirror

I pretended not to see

Until one day

The woman staring back

Looked straight through me

That’s the story he told

I was crazy

I was cold

I was everything that broke us

He was innocent, I’m told

That’s the story he told

But he left a few things out

Like how he took a woman with a voice

And taught her how to doubt

Every word

Every dream

Every damn thing that made her whole

Yeah—

That was his story

But it’s not mine anymore

I gave up pieces quietly

So nobody heard them fall

My work

My words

My friends

Myself

Till there was nothing left at all

He wore success like armor

Everybody knew his name

While I stood smiling next to him

And slowly took the blame

But there’s something about rock bottom

When there’s nowhere left to hide

You either stay there underneath it

Or you fucking decide

And I saw my children watching

What we taught them love could be

That’s when the fear of staying

Got bigger than the fear of leaving

Let him tell the story

Let him say I lost control

Let him make himself the hero

If that’s what feeds his soul

Let him tell them that I broke us

That I threw our life away

I spent too many years believing him

I don’t give a damn

What he says

Because I know

Who I was

And I know what I survived

He can keep the story

I took back my life

It took a while to meet her

The woman I am now

She didn’t come back all at once

She had to figure out how

How to laugh without permission

How to spend the money she made

How to write until two in the morning

Without explaining why she stayed

How to look into a mirror

Without hearing someone else

How to stop asking everybody

If it’s okay

To love herself

I am not difficult

I have boundaries

I am not selfish

I have needs

I am not crazy

I remember what happened

I am not weak

I survived you

I’m still a mother

Still a writer

Still every fucking thing

You couldn’t stand to see

Because the stronger I became

The less

You could control me

So look at me now

Tell your story

Tell them everything you need

Make me every kind of villain

If that’s how you sleep

Say I ruined the marriage

Say I tore our world apart

You can have your version

You don’t get my heart

Because I know

Who I am

And God, I finally love her