round two

whatever it was that made me think i could do this, and whatever it was that made you think that it was OK to do the things you did and didn't do; whatever it was, and i know this now, it wasn't enough and it wasn't real.

maybe it was my inexperience, or maybe i was naive, or maybe it was my willingness to see only good in other people. maybe it was something else entirely, maybe -  and this is the hardest option for me to consider even though i still do - maybe there was no reason at all. maybe what happened was a mere twist of faith, a coincidence, two people at the wrong place at a completely wrong time. 

i really don't know, and frankly, my dear, in the end i really don't give a damn. because what happened, happened, and the effects it had on me took place no matter what the reason was. do you understand that? do you understand that i no longer exist outside the reality that you created for me, that there is no me outside the person you crafted me to be. do you see that? do you understand, really?

and if you do, how does it make you feel?

how does it feel to know that you have walked all over me? that your stampede of one has broken me like a fallen-out nestling breaks under the boot of a inattentive passer-by ; and now that i am telling you this, does it touch you in any way to know that the world we lived in, your world, was nothing but hell for me? i know you didn't do the things you did because you're evil, or because you would have deliberately wanted to be vicious; i know you are not a bad person. but i also know that you felt entitled all the way, that you never thought you were doing something wrong, and this is the part that puzzles me the most.

because how is it that your reality is so different from mine? how is it even possible that even though we speak the same language we are so unable to share any true view of reality? how is it that when you ask how i'm feeling you have already decided what the reply should be, and no matter what i say it is through that filter that my words reach your consciousness?

and i guess that is where the problem lies, in the end. i was guilty of the same misinterpretation when i heard a promise of change in your voice and saw a flicker of hope in the sharp line of your shoulder. i saw what i wanted to and heard what i needed to, and that left me deaf and blind for everything else. and i don't know, maybe i am now partial to something else, maybe there is now something else i choose not to acknowledge; but i know it is not you any more.