my paper heart will bleed

i've been betrayed one last time. i've played the game until the very end. we have come to a most painful kind of standoff. all this time i thought i could never settle, in the light i understand that i was just afraid to find i was wrong. i was wrong about you, love. wrong about every tender moment, every sweet kiss though the car window in nameless parking lots. wrong about waking beside you, about perfection in cheek bones. janis joplin says freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, and today i am free from you. free because you've taken from me all i could give, now there is nothing left in me for you to destroy. every moment i begged for kindness and you turned your face... every second i mouned it, every time my arms bled for you while you held me under your ocean... they cannot be undone, love.

you kicked and tore. you thought it would heal again, some scar on my soul with your name on it. but this scar will bare only my own. i used to think i wouldn't know what to do without you, but i know very well. i will live. i will live for myself. i will turn away as you have so many times. i will save myself. and soon, the paper heart you owned will lie next to something so much more.

today is that day, love. that day i'll say goodbye. remember it while you think of me in someone's arms, laughing and smiling the way you thought only you could make me. remember today when i finally feel loved, loved in a way you could never give me.