Years of grueling labor and pushing out babies all so you could smile.
Taking you back despite my brain 🧠telling me not to, knowing the ash on your breath was from smoking with someone else. Teeth yellow despite my eyes being white, no smile just grinding bark piercing my ears with cries.
Knowing that the money doesn't make up for your yelling, doesn't make up for the unsatisfied nights you would give me and how you would put more effort into HER.
How you would whisper her name underneath your breath, giggling about the things she said and you never giggled. At least not with me, barely a laugh or chuckle just a cough when you wanted to satisfy me and I wasn't satisfied.
Especially when other men begged for my attention but all I wanted was yours, clearly I wasn't enough for you though. Your children weren't enough for you, not when they wanted you to come home, not when they had some of their own, and not when they just wanted you here.
Even while you were in the pen, I bragged on your behalf, and stood by you when no one else did. All to get that laugh I always wanted, but it didn't feel the same, when I got it.
Not when you wedged your way back into my heart and not when you planted weeds in my bed, having to pull them up every day.
Sweat caked the outer layer of my forehead as you slept peacefully in the bed I made, springs and soft cotton pushed into a mattress with leftover money that I saved up.
All for you to find it and give it to her, spend on her, she wasn't there a day in your life like I was yet you gravitate toward her.
Giving me your dirty clothes while she embraces your clean, that suffocating cologne choking me and I asked you to change it but I knew you wore it because it was her favorite.
Musty, strong medicine is what it smelled like to me, yet you would beg to differ and argue with me about the way you treated things.
Dirty dishes and shit-stained underwear on the floor, took a shit and made the house smell like it more. Air fresher poured throughout each and every room and I would play with a knife imagining this was fully my house.
Picturing your face as a little lost mouse, setting a trap for you when you come, so this time you wouldn't run. Forcing you to tell the truth, for you are a sneaky coward who hates to lose.
Some of the things you do would make a woman go crazy, hell, and just because you were sorry doesn't mean I got lazy.
Picking up socks, cleaning the floors, and being the shoulder to cry on when our children needed so much more. Wondering why you weren't there, it took so much for me to not care or lie. Wondering why you couldn't even say goodbye, or give me an explanation for all the years you wasted.
A sorry sperm donor who made me do all the work, and continues to torture me, squeezing deeper and deeper into my chest as you force your way into a space that doesn't fit.
Your love hanging out like a blubbering fish, matching the reflection that you see in your disgusting mess. Your voice starting to give me heartache like greasy food you became a pain, an illness, a disease with no gain.
Threatening to call the police for the crimes you've done and ashamed when your lover gave you no place to run. You claim we drifted apart when in reality there was no spark, the truth is you forced your way into my heart. From the start a full-circle ending that I couldn't bear to see, struck by Cupid's false arrow which wasn't apparent to me.
Loneliness growing heavy on my shoulders as that broken bed reminds me of the closure, that you forced me to take. Stuffing your news down my throat with no water to soothe me, and then getting angry when I am not surprised. When you told me over the years without any denying, you wouldn't share tears or a beer when I asked.
Getting upset when you came home and dinner didn't last, complaining about my cooking, my clothes, and my point of view. Mad because you were the only closed-minded fool, and the fact I wouldn't follow you. Not in a ditch, not with any pitch or anything you had in mind, I mainly did it to spite you and waste your time.
Which I don't regret, because you deserve it and more, giving us all unhealed sores. So it feels relieving to finally see you gone. I don't have to hear no rotten song, no messed up long drawn out apology, that I know you don't mean. Finally, clearing up that headache that's been kicking me for years, no dirty shit left in my house no more and I can finally hear my voice again.
I can scream without hearing a nagging voice and I can pick up a knife without imagining you at the end of it. Drink my tea and coffee without considering you and finally letting her use you for all that you are worth. Which really isn't jack-shit but at least I don't have to deal with it.
I'm free and it's something that I'd never thought I would see until your last breath. But now the last time I checked, it's not my problem, I can entertain compliments if I want, slouch when I talk, and finally let my hair grow out. You always liked it short so I cut it every week, but it's down to my back and I moved on south, traveling wherever the wind takes me.
Excited for each day that awakens me, because I look forward to the sunshine and better days. To my own smiles and praise, for my own voice is worth it, and so are my wants and needs.
That is why now, I do whatever I please.