after the parade

i tried to become a good person. i tried to shrink myself into something your love could keep safe. but here, they turned my pain into a carnival. they paraded me through the streets like a monster they could not kill. and i kept bandaging the same places they had broken, stitching my life back together from broken pieces no one cared enough to keep.

when you turned your back on me, it did not feel like abandonment. it felt like i had just lost the final battle in a war i never even wanted to join.