You Are The Dream That Became A Nightmare

Tell it to the birds, and the trees, and the soft sadness inside me. Tell it to the things that made me trust you again. Tell this story to everyone you know, how once upon a time you knew a girl like me, a girl who still believed in the fairytales of old. A girl who trusted too easily and who fell too hard. A girl who chose to love again despite her scars.

You probably tell everyone who once knew us, a different version of this tale. You probably show people a different side to the way we fell. I don’t think anyone would want to know that side of you anyway. The monsters behind that sweet, gentle mask everyone else knows and loves. You are a thing made of softness to so many that no one would believe you could be a demon when it comes to love.

I fell hard for you when we met, girls like me often do. I loved you so much that dreams of you captured my entire mind, during the night and during the day too. This is what real love feels like, real love is meant to consume you, I convinced myself. The truth is real love is supposed to make you feel safe and comforted more than anything else.

He’s possessive because he cares, I gritted my teeth through it. He shouts at me because he wants me the best I can be, I convinced myself. Around 60 percent of the time you were amazing anyway, what did it matter that you struggled to be perfect the other 40? I could live with that, I told myself. I could live with that.

Except I couldn’t.

I couldn’t live with your terrifying mood swings where you went from the happiest person in the world to someone who was lifting me by the soft skin around my neck. I couldn’t live with constantly informing you of where I was and having to take permission to see my friends. I remember being tired and afraid more than 40 percent of the time. And then I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t tired and afraid.

I left you, quite fittingly, in the middle of the night. I left you when I thought you were asleep. I left you at a time when I knew I would not have a fist thrown at me. And I knew you would come looking for me. And no one would believe me when I told them that YOU, Mr. Nice Guy did all that to me.

So I kept shut and let the nightmares come. I let them wash over me. Unbroken sleep washing over every day. Sleepless nights because I didn’t want to see you again.

It’s strange how that can happen. How someone can go from being your favourite dream that you cannot wait to sleep and dream about…to the monster that lurks just on the outside of your subconcious every night.

I have grown stronger since you. I have grown brighter and bigger and better. But still when I see a pair of soft eyes and a gentle smile, I wonder: what nightmares do you hide behind those sweet, sensitive eyes?