You dangled me off a cliff
holding a fragile rope
of the person who I was and could be.
The rope of my sanity,
the rope of my dignity,
the rope of me.
The person growing up
in an unknown world.
You waited to see how long you could test me.
See how long I would withstand everything,
see how long you had before the rope finally broke
and my perception of life was tampered.
Say NO once,
shame on you.
Say NO twice,
shame on me.
So I erased all traces
of the word NO from my memory.
Learning quickly
that I could never say NO
to you.
That NO should have helped me climb back up.
Back to the safe and solid land of sanity.
I didn’t see what you were doing
until it was too late.
You cut the rope
and I crashed
thanks to the laws of gravity
down into a place of no return
filled with phobias and panic attacks.
One breath.
Two breath.
Three breath.
Four.
Five breath.
Six breath.
Seven breath.
Floor.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Oh no, now I’m about to pass out.
All these anxieties and fears fluttering inside me.
They’re there just to remind me
of what this could have been,
of what this would have been,
of what this should have been,
of what this will never be.
The this being you
and the been being the future
if I’d allowed you to stay
for just one more second.
And it’s all my fault.
All because I couldn’t say
No, because I wouldn’t say
No, because I should have said
No, because I didn’t say