The Sweetest Kind of Poison

by Katie Wismer

the stories never tell you what to do when the knight who rescues you turns out to be more dangerous than the dragon he saved you from

my young heart saw your dark eyes and jagged edges and thought oh what a fun adventure it would be to be broken by you

he was everything I didn’t need disguised as everything I wanted

my heart was made of fire and you were gasoline we burned and burned and burned and burned but never once were we touched by the flames it seemed like some kind of m a g i c

she was just a girl with a hard shell a soft heart and some heavy dreams in her pockets

I wanted you because I liked the idea of you wanting me my heart begged me not to be so reckless but you were too much of a thrill to resist

I guess sometimes you find someone perfect for you in every way except for the ways that matter

I’m just trying to understand how being with you can feel like heaven and hell all at once

I will never understand it I don’t have enough time I don’t have enough ink

all this time I thought I could swim because there are oceans inside of me and I’ve spent my whole life learning to tread water but then you came along and it was everything I could do to stop myself from drowning

you might be fun and passion and danger and risk but my soul is hungry for so much more than just your hands on my skin

I fell for a version of you that doesn’t exist

it was a car crash in the dead of night twisted metal headlights smeared across my vision an all-consuming pain I didn’t even realize anything was wrong until the entire world was upside down -blindsided

sometimes you think you found a good one but then he turns out to be just another monster wearing a mask

you did everything you could to get me to trust you enough to let you crack open my chest so you could look inside but I guess you didn’t like what you found at least not enough

it’s an art really the way you twist your cruelest words into a nice little bow and somehow convince me that I tied the knot

your words used to make me melt now all they do is burn

your lies were like drops of acid once I was touched by one it just spread and festered and burned its way through everything you had ever done

and so I stopped picking up when you called because I realized all the rumors had been true and all of your promises were paper-thin and so I stopped responding that is until I didn’t

you may not be the sun but still I looked at you for so long and now that I’ve looked away my eyes cannot adjust and everything just looks dark

it’s easy to say I don’t need you when you’re still here but it’s so hard to remember after you leave

I deserve better but I prefer you

your love just feels like a punishment

your kind words mean nothing if you have to be drunk to say them

why would I want your mouth on me now that I know all the places it’s been? -you’re just another bad habit to kick

sometimes you think you’ve found the one and you’re wrong and it’s not losing him that hurts it’s losing that hope it’s the exhaustion that follows as you think about all the time it takes to get to know a person to build that foundation to talk to him in a way you don’t talk to anyone else and wondering what was the point of all that time of all those conversations of all those late nights if he was just going to leave and realizing you’ll have to start all over with someone else - I’m just so fucking tired of dead ends

I can’t love you into being a good person

I fell in love with your shadow a cursory glimpse at most and even though you claim to still be here all I feel is your ghost

you don’t deserve a book a poem or even a word but yet here I am wasting all of my ink on you

I wish I could light a match inside of my skull and burn your name from my memory like the scraps of paper filled with the words you’ve made my heart scream

loving you leaving you— it all hurts just the same

the sound of your name still gives me bruises

I’m just trying to remember what I wanted before you

every time you miss him so much that you start to convince yourself maybe the abuse wasn’t so bad I want you to remember this: he doesn’t care if you’re okay he doesn’t care if you’re unhappy he doesn’t care if he hurts you he doesn’t care about you at all

so many things have been ruined for me because they make me think of you

sometimes happiness feels so fragile

I guess that’s the problem with small towns everywhere I look is stained with memories of you there’s no place you haven’t touched

somehow the healing hurts worse than the breaking

and now all of my nightmares are dressed like you

the worst feeling is being drunk at 3 am after everyone else has gone home and you find yourself alone with the room spinning and despite all the shots and the wine and the beer and the lights and the people at the end of the night it’s just you climbing into bed bracing your hand against the wall and you realize goddamn I still miss him

no matter where I go or who I meet or what I see I only want to talk to you

my days are too empty without you there’s so much space you used to fill

you and I were never art by any means but damn the days have so much less color now that you’re gone - I’m not ready to be strangers again

I can’t decide if you don’t care or if you’re sitting there convincing yourself that if I cared I’d reach out just like I’m telling myself about you

3 letters 8 minutes that’s all it took for me to fall back into your web -hey

I mistook a relapse for a second chance -some things end for a reason

because of you I have the urge to break things I want to see glass shatter into a million pieces and feel ribs crack beneath my hands because of you I have the urge to scream I want to scream as loudly as I can until my throat tears open and fills with blood because of you I have the urge to drown I want to cry until my tears fill the room around me and swallow me whole but even then I don’t think it would be enough even then I wouldn’t have any peace even then your ghost wouldn’t leave me

it’s too easy to forget you’re a battleground when you feel so much like coming home

I keep blaming you for reopening my wounds but I’m the one who keeps letting you

maybe I’m just a little too good at accepting things that are just “good enough”