I remember the day I didn’t deserve a name,

He called me no one,

No, He called me less than that,

Venom and hatred spewed and spat,

Heavy,

In the aftermath,

I could not be NO ONE he yelled,

If he saw me as NOTHING,

Less than living, inanimate, breaking,

Screaming in a pool of red over the loss of my identity.

 

You met nothing two years later,

Two years late,

Months before your hands would brush my face,

I wanted to explain, how I wanted,

To allow you in every lost wonderland I still clung to,

every place,

every dream my mind kept about love so as not to erase,

who was left of her after nothing.

 

You never spoke to my body,

never acknowledged nothing,

Focusing on my soul, my name, me,

Never asking what I would give,

But rather what was left for you to hold,

How could I understand your sincerity,

When I’ve never seen someone pick up the tan carton at a store?

And search so feverishly for the cracked,

For the one meager resemblance of that fragile white oval from before,

Beginning to seep from the inside out,

Knowing that there is still value in the wreckage,

And not using the remnants as your leverage.

 

Reaching up to climb with confidence,

Finding trust and value to hold above,

My grounded doubts and insecurities,

I grasp onto your limbs,

The branches of loyalty and respect you have put in place,

always within reach.

For who fears the fall

When the foundation has been built on stability?

On allowing nothing to reclaim her identity,

So that she can believe you when you whisper,

Because I love you,

I love you,

Victoria.