You Weren’t the Target; You Were Just Collateral Damage
You Weren’t the Target; You Were Just Collateral Damage
I’m a spec of dust in the existence of humanity — a singular strand of beings spanning the course of billions of years across trillions of stars in a universe infinitely larger than the aggregate of everyone I know and every moment I scorn or adore in the entirety of my lifetime combined. And yet , even so , here I sit in great wallow and pity over my misfortune , no good, terrible , unfair heartbreak…so original and endearing my forefathers and their toiling families would shed their starved tears in agony over my tough life circumstances and under their broken breath muster out just enough air to softly say to me that’s life kid, get the fuck over it.
And they’d be right, I should get the fuck over it- I know this, so why the fuck is it so hard? The truth is, I did everything a singular human being could do in a relationship ; I mean Hallmark could have taken some notes on the grandeur gestures I adorned her and our relationship in- I guess they could still take notes for their next riveting tear jerker series. I haven’t met a single soul to stand the turmoil of my story without loosing some hydration from their orbital orifices. I’ve been standing at the brink of a sheer cutting drop off cliff expecting the land to grow out underneath me and have been surprised at the tenacity of how quickly I fell to the earth and the thud that transpired from my organs splashing out across the violent wave tops below still adoringly looking back at where I once stood so naively optimistic that her hand would be outreached urgently and lovingly to save me.
God knows how much I want to hate you; talk shit about what you did and how you said it — everything about what transpired but the honest truth is you did what in your heart felt right and I, nor anyone, can ever tell you that you’re wrong for doing so, and I don’t like it. I wasn’t the target of her ballistic missiles I was just in the blast zone of its shrapnel, but I stood there willingly and even after the first round- idle knowing what was to come but unable to move away. The reality is, had it been me or not, these demons were hers to face and their spirits were bound to entrap her eventually until they were appropriately drowned out in excessive holy water and there’s not a thing in this world more I could have done to help her, and I don’t like it.
I want to be the victim — I mean I am , right!? She left the table in the middle of our meal , waiting for the desert we built up all day, without so much as an excuse. She left without any tangible explanations and I want — I demanded answers and when I didn’t get them the wounds went without washing ;I lay there bleeding out in hopes that you’ll come closer and hold me in my sporadic last breaths so my final words could eloquently remind you of your undying love for me — you’d kiss me and magically we’d revive my broken body and live happily ever after because I sacrificed so much of myself for you- and that’s what love is right?
I no longer pretend to know what the answers are, I have given up on painting our picture together I was always picking the colors and prepping the canvas’s , and I’m tired. Maybe you’ll show up with the brushes you promised but I don’t know how much I bank in that stroke of luck anymore- probably about as much as I put into my retirement fund but for as little I put in there at least it’s matched…
I guess if nothing else through the hurt I know I wasn’t the target, and that provides some solace, it was never intentional. I was just the lucky lover that helped you discover what you needed to , to grow; I’m your steppingstone onto better, greener grasses. I was never your target, but I sure as shit was collateral damage and I love every jagged metal edge lodged in my skin, every shattered bone, every exposed flesh formed hole in my muscle tissue- because every wound was another second spent with you.
