T/W: this is my trauma poem about my daddy issues and the cycle of getting into toxic relationships 🥴
It's not a fun one

___

Your smile blooms
Razor sharp teeth stretching over jagged bone
A grin too wide
Stretched taut with spite
The kind of smile YOU KNOW leaves wounds

I know that smile
I've seen it countless times
On the face of my father before he cuts and spoils
Something rotten birthed from a sick mind
I'm trapped in this smile

Trapped in this room. Trapped in this house
Keeping my voice to a whisper so that you don't hear
Making my feet as light as a feather so that you don't hear
Quiet as a mouse
Quiet as the child who cowered when my father was in the house
Trapped. Trapped. Trapped.

Pain becomes familiarity
Familiarity becomes safety*
Maybe that's why I stay
Because I know this pain
I've seen it on my mothers face and on the face of every woman who men like you have driven insane

I pray to god to send me a man who won't remind me of him
Who won't wear my father's skin
Don my father's smile
Who won't leave me begging. Pleading. Crying.
I feel like throwing up sometimes

Maybe I'm the one who's crazy
Carving my father's shadow into your bones
Am I crazy? Is it me? Is it just me?
I'm projecting again.
Mistaking a joke as something vicious
Mistaking a laugh as something sinister
Maybe I am.
Maybe I'm anticipating that you'll hurt me the same way
Waiting for the ball to drop
Waiting for the sky to fall
Conjuring cruelty. Imagining malice

But I know that smile
It's the smile of a fucking sadist

___

A/n: depressing poem, idk
It felt cathartic to get it all out though

Also credit for this line goes to Reem bc I can't let her accuse me of plagiarism yet again (the earlier time was in middle school TWELVE years ago and she won't let me forget - bro is still salty about it) xD