TRAGIC Poem: Ring the Alarm, by Jasmine Gonzalez

Letting go is difficult.
Especially when you fail to notice
that the one you love,
with every fiber of your being,
is holding the knife
that will later gut you.

I stared into the flame,
from the gas light on your table,
My eyes adjusted
to the convincing, distorted view.

You held my wrists tightly in place,
like shackles.
Keeping my gaze on the one light,
to make sure I didn’t see the other dozen,
making the single one burn brighter.

But each light
brought warmth to the room.
So, I didn’t even hear the alarms go off,
until the entire room was on fire.

And I stopped being blind
to painfully obvious truths.

The words,
from the sweetest lips,
that I found blissfully comforting,
spewed venom
in my once naive heart.

Your huge hands,
gripping my neck,
left imprints of your fingers,
showing your control of my breath.

Those same fingers,
leaving dark and distinct bruises,
decorating my pale arms,
and destroying every boundary.

Lying and cheating,
you claimed were accidents.
Made my trust as fragile
as the mirror that showed a reflection
I no longer recognized.

Forcing your way into
my fragile body.
I was nothing more,
than a vessel for new life.

But you accomplished NOTHING,
but making my stomach turn,
from utter disgust.

It’s a shame,
you can’t tell from the outside
if the meat inside is poison.

It took me far too long to see,
what everyone already knew.
The issue wasn’t always me,
the problem was often you.