Kicking Him While hes down and I was kicking from rock bottoms floor
I was the storm in his already burning house,
the shaking hands gripping the match,
the hurricane whispering, You deserved this.
But I did not mean to be destruction.
I did not wake up one morning and choose
to tear through his world with my bare hands.
I was drowning,
and drowning people do not check to see
who they pull under when they gasp for air.
It started with whispers in my own mind,
a voice I swore wasn’t mine,
a month lost inside a body that betrayed me,
inside a mind that spun itself into static,
where the walls blinked, the shadows curled,
and I screamed at ghosts
that did nothing but stand still.
And then—
truth, sharp as broken glass.
I had believed him whole,
believed he had crawled from the wreckage
of his own undoing,
believed that if I could just keep my balance,
we would make it through.
But he had never stopped.
His demons had not returned—
they had only curled up quietly beneath his ribs,
waiting, patient, knowing
that the moment I fell apart,
he would have nothing left to fight for.
And I fell.
Hard.
I shattered like porcelain against concrete,
lashed out,
knives in my words, daggers in my hands,
pushing, pulling, breaking.
I became the thing I swore I’d never be—
a reflection of the madness,
the sickness,
the desperation I had fought to escape.
And he—
he fed his demons in my absence.
Let them feast on his grief,
his anger,
his loneliness,
until there was nothing left of the man
who once traced stars into my skin.
I wonder if he thought I wouldn’t notice.
If he thought I was too far gone
to hear the way his breath changed,
to see the flicker of hunger
return to his hands.
I wonder if he knew
I was trying to climb out,
but every time I reached for the edge,
I found my hands slick with his blood,
his with mine,
and neither of us strong enough
to lift the other.
I said things I can’t take back.
I left wounds that won’t fade.
I was the worst of me,
and he was the worst of him,
and still, I wanted him to hold me
like I was anything but the breaking point.
And maybe he did.
And maybe I let him.
And maybe we both knew, even then,
that we would never be whole again.
Copyright ©
Evelyn Collins
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