i don't know what they've told you about me

the truth is, i don't want to know

have they mentioned me?

or am i just a shadowy cloud

the monster that they don't talk about

it's okay whatever it is

i just wanted you to know me

i don't know you at all

but i feel like we probably aren't alike

or maybe we are

it's okay, whatever it is

i listen to taylor swift like it's gospel music

i drink my coffee at varying temperatures

based on what the world tells me to do that day

i cry about school when i feel like i do good

and when i fail, i crash and burn

and i wreck my car and drink enough at the bonfires to end up

lost in a gas station at three in the morning

i collect the pretty cacti on my windowsill

and then forget about them 

and they dry up

and i cry when they do

even though it's my fault.

i convinced colt a hundred years ago

that cats were my entire personality

it turns out i'm allergic

and i havent touched one in years

it's funny because

the version of me he dated

is a girl who's died and lived

a hundred million times

since that fateful halloween night

that was the last day of that piece of me

she died with me that day

since then i have been a different form

a girl who's filled with a regret

for the things she did as a child

i don't want your man anymore

please believe me, this isn't a love letter

but simply an apology note

for all the damage i may have caused

because all of the ghosts that haunt me at night

look like him and me and you

and we're all running from me

if he remembers, i used to write

but all the elegies i used to write

had been abandoned the moment i realized

that the world was not the villain

and instead it was me

and all the projects i had poured my soul into

suddenly seemed shallow and dense

and now every time my pen bleeds onto the paper

i see myself in the anti-hero

and all the protagonists 

have no true compass

they hate themselves with everything they have

i haven't written a true hero 

since that day we broke apart

because every time i tell myself

that something is right

i question why i believe that

because the god that i blamed our split on

i'm sure i don't even believe in anymore

and the moral compass i claimed to have

was never mine to begin with

god, it was never mine

so i am sorry 

for all the hurt i caused

i wanted to have you know 

who i am

that i'm not the villain 

they make me out to be

but maybe i am

and if i am then i'll probably destroy myself for it 

i have never forgiven myself for it

and perhaps my endless stream of poems

going back and forth trying to find the villain

is all pointless

and is some futile way

of trying to bring myself peace

it's not a lost love

it's simply a girl who knows

she treated a boy with cruelty 

and regrets it every day 

so please

treat him right.

please.

be what i never 

had the capability

and the freedom

to be 

i saw the video

of him proposing to you

and it ripped out a piece of my soul

not because i wish it were me

but because i wished i could have

said sorry first

because the last thing i ever wanted

was to be the elephant in the room

if someone dared mention my name 

anyways, 

please love him

please be happy

i am happy with my own

don't worry about me

he doesn't love me anymore

please be content with him

and don't hurt him like i did 

and be you

don't change for a man

and don't create your actions

based on what your family

tells you is right