you knew

you knew how i was broken,
how i didn’t have enough of myself.
you knew from the start:
i had doubts, i was insecure,
i felt inadequate, i was hurt.
you knew i had my guards up,
my walls towering, myself protected.
i surrendered all these to you
because you showed me that you knew.

you knew how to heal me:
you soothed me with words of comfort,
you wrapped me in your warm embrace,
you showered me with sweet kisses,
you showed me i mattered most,
you made me believe i deserved all those.
you knew how to make me feel that i belong,
that finally, with you, i have found my haven.

you knew how to make me grow:
you rekindled the dying flame of poetry,
you sparked the tiniest light of hope in me,
you awakened the blissful child long asleep.
you knew how to make me happy.

but above all else, you knew how to break me:
you shattered my trust like pieces of glass
strewn across the landscape of dismay;
you seasoned the pieces of my broken heart
with lies you told, over and over, time and again.
you made me believe i was the only one.
you knew, from the start, i cannot leave you,
so you took advantage of my weakness—
my constant hunger for you, my never-ending
wanting to be with you, to be yours.
you made a fool out of me:
you knew you were leaving, and you didn’t
tell me; you told someone else and fell for him.

you knew i was trying to be strong,
for myself, for you, for us. you knew this,
yet you chose to break my heart all along.
you knew i was fragile, i was weak.
you knew i’d choose you, over and over.
you knew me all too well that you made use
of what you knew to turn me back to what i was:
and now, in the darkness of the day,
in cry as my emotions cloud my judgment,
and my tears fall like the morning rain.
here i am: broken, doubting, insecure, inadequate.
i am no longer the lover
you knew.