The Puppet

Your shirt. The Aztec pattern.

That’s where it started. That’s where I lost everything. That’s where I was mutilated.

You stripped me. You stripped me at the touch of your lips.

At least this time you left me fully clothed.

 

Charm. Only it wasn’t charm, was it?

Manipulating Controlling. Vindictive.

All mistaken for charm.

You burrowed your way in. Abducting all you could get.

 

The tweet of my T’s. Johnstone is interesting.

I believed I was enough. You engulfed me. I was yours.

Shackled. You didn’t listen. You did not want to listen.

Undignified I was left. Now here I am.

 

Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.

The only thing dirty was your intentions.

Intoxicated was the only way I could face you.

Intoxicated worked in your favour. I was most definitely not me and even more yours.

 

It was the power, my body, the upper hand.  Not me.

I tried to get a grip. I tried. It was not enough.

I am not enough. Not for the puppeteer. Not for anyone.

Who was I?

 

No. Who were you?

Not the Aztec shirt wearer anyway.

An accidental, purposeful double life.

Eighteen years of complete lies.

 

A silent statistic that screams volumes.

I lay there riddled with guilt and embarrassment.

I asked for it. I let him in. I let him touch me in ways I had never let anyone else before.

I was making it up. It’s normal behaviour. Melodramatic like you said.

 

My hair has changed. I’ve morphed into a different person.

You changed me. It changed me.

The world knows yet I am still screaming.

Like white noise. Faded.

 

No one wants to hear about it anymore.

“We get over it”, she said. She who I sacrificed everything for.

I had lost him. I had lost my dignity. I had lost my innocence.

And now, I was losing her. Coincidental? I think not.

 

 

January. Four months on.

Four artificial months as a smiling shell.

Brighter smile. Days still as dark.

Why is this how I’m starting my adult life?

 

I didn’t choose this. You didn’t listen.

You stripped me naked. 

Grinning, you left me hanging.

Unknowing when my strings will next be pulled and in what direction.