By the time he left, I hated myself in pieces. I could itemise it – I hated my hair, it was flat. I hated my legs, they were a funny shape. My nose too large, boobs too small, laugh too discordant, hands too dry, mind too scattered. I was unconfident, I was obnoxiously overconfident. I was self-aware, I overthought. By the time he left, you could take all of the pieces of me and hold them in your hands. They didn’t shimmer, not anymore. All of the slices of the girl that was – they glinted dully if they caught the light right, but you wouldn’t see them if you walked into the room.
But time passed, as time is wont to do. Time passed and the all of those pieces sat there, and sometimes the shadow they cast looked suspiciously like the girl from before. The one who danced for the love of dancing, ate for the love of flavour, kissed for the love of love. Time passed, and there were people. They didn’t mind that the pieces were all sharp edges, dull edges, dead eyes. There were friends, “dinner?”, new neighbours. Each smile, each outstretched hand, each wonderful summer’s moment. They didn’t just cut through the thicket, they set it ablaze and dared it to try again.
By the time he tried to come back, I loved myself in pieces. I could itemise it – I loved my laugh, loved my grin, loved my flip-flop tanlines and unseemly hair. By the time he tried to come back, he couldn’t scale the walls of the castle he’d crumbled.
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