The Places I've Cried in Public

by Holly Bourne

All of it was my fault.”

Common heartbreak saying

If only I’d done things differently. Been…less me, then I wouldn’t have driven you away.

I need to rip off the plaster and let the wound breathe so it can heal.

being scared to love someone, the fear that it will rip you apart like a pack of dogs.

You said you would stop if it hurt, but you didn’t.

when I said it was hurting, you only got rougher.

it wasn’t just how you were during it that messes with my head,

what you were like afterwards.

I felt the desperate need to shower again.

see in the new day by staring at the wall and shaking violently.

“He did something bad…he did lots of bad things…”

love isn’t supposed to go how it went with him.

maybe it was something darker.”

You can’t force pain to leave until it’s ready to. Like the most annoying party guest, it only leaves in its own sweet goddamned time.

I will never be the girl I was before you and what you did to me.

He was joking with such conviction that I started to wonder if I had actually imagined him saying it the first time.

when we love someone and they hurt us, our brain doesn’t like it.

I’m grieving for me. I’m grieving for the me I was before I met you.

Abuse is also when your personality is attacked,

Abuse is feeling like you constantly have to walk on eggshells around the person you’re supposed to love.

being cut off from you...

being made to feel you’re g...

lured in with grand promises and wild decla...

Abuse is being pushed into doing sexual things you’re not...

Abuse is intentionally humil...

Abuse is constantly blaming you for everything,...