“Love is Holding Your Bags for You”

I don’t remember the context, or the time of day, or even the location. But I can’t scrape that look in your eyes, permanently etched in my brain.
The eyes of someone prepared and ready for combat.

I remember how the words you spat tasted on my tongue, so bitter they still burn.
I remember how small I felt, how suddenly my feet felt light, and how my heart dropped.
Not all at once or suddenly, but slowly, descending into my gut. So slow, like it was in denial, trying its best to resist acknowledging the revelation.

Is this what you equate my worth to? Holding my bags?
Was it a calculated move, added to my debt?
Was it the act you labeled as one you would regret doing for me if I didn’t measure up?

Yes, I don’t remember the context or what the fight was about,
but the feeling you gave me was a redundant, on-a-loop transgression of yours.

When you’re overwhelmed and can’t process your negativity, you don’t attempt to contain it.
You unleash it onto me. And what’s even more poetic is how good you’ve gotten at justifying why I deserved it.

That’s not fair though. You do try very hard to contain it.
But the harder you try, the worse the wrath of you becomes.
And the uglier the justification that comes with it.

I can’t decide what’s worse.
Continuous small lashes,
or one so intense it leaves a permanent mark?

Many times, I still believe it.
That I deserved your violation of my pride and dignity.
And many times, I settle for:
but you did carry my bags.

And many times, only after I’ve lived through it,
after I’ve apologized and succumbed to it,
I realize it’s not about me.
It never is.

Collateral damage. That’s all.

While I will always love you despite it all,
some things will change.

You will never carry my bags again.