paradoxical

cupid's arrow is so overrated ; i'd prefer the real thing

My mom has pictures of me as a baby framed.

She holds me in them, smiling despite the fact that her stomach was just cut open.

Despite the hours worth of excruciating pain that it took to birth me.

She loves me in those pictures.

I would go on bike rides with my dad when I was around five.

My bike was significantly smaller than his.

He would let me win, every single time I tried to race him.

He loves me on those streets.

I moved away from my first home when I was about twelve.

My friend threw me a goodbye party in her house and invited all my friends.

Most of them came, and the ones who couldn't, still signed the card.

They love me in that basement.

I was thirteen, in eighth grade, when I met my best friend.

She would let me take her bus home on days that I couldn't be picked up.

I didn't get a bus to my neighborhood.

She loves me on that bus.

I had a solid friend group when I was around sixteen.

They threw me surprise parties for all my birthdays.

Even though, they weren't all that surprising towards the end of high school.

They love me in that town.

I cried in my dorm room when I was eighteen.

I had just told my roommate what all the pill bottles on my nightstand were for.

I knew her for less than a month and she just hugged me.

She loves me in our dorm.

I hung up the phone on you when you called me overweight.

I slammed your car door shut after you told me my personality was embarrassing.

I quietly sobbed in communal bathrooms at 2am when you told me that you disliked something about me.

I thought it was normal to date someone who was threatened by my happiness when away from them.

I stopped going out with friends or being myself while we were together.

You loved when I wasn't me.

I find it unfair how your cruel convictions and hollow insults managed to deflate a heart filled with years

and years

of love.

How dare you make the slicing open of my mother's stomach 

the thousands of rigged races against my dad

the piles of we'll miss you 's scribbled on construction paper from my youth

the trips to the office to give them the bus entry permission slips 

the eccentric cakes with inside jokes scrawled upon them with icing from my girls

the unfamiliar embrace of the newest, yet most prominent figure in my life

fade away

as if they never existed in the first place

fade away to the point where I am forced to remind myself daily

I stand in front of mirrors most mornings

telling myself that I am not unloveable

telling myself that I've been loved

that I am loved

Repeating it again and again and again

hoping that finally, the day will come again where

my voice doesn't fade away

Something it hasn't stopped doing since you

I know life isn't fair-- 

but nobody told me that love wouldn't be either

Maybe nothing is