Deceit

experiencing infidelity.

Your lips felt like forever
or maybe forever was just something
I needed to believe in.

Each kiss, every embrace,
the warmth of your body against mine
it was a high I didn’t know
I was addicted to.

And now I feel like a fool.

Trying to understand deceit
is like trying to solve a puzzle
with half the pieces missing.

I remember the way you wiped the tears
from beneath my eyes,
so gently
it almost felt like love.

I remember how you introduced me to your blood,
your family,
placing me beside you
like I belonged there.

But the cruelest lies are always the softest ones.

The reassurances you whispered
when my gut tried to speak for me.
When something deep in my chest
twisted and warned me
that something wasn’t right.

And every time I voiced it
you soothed me.

Soft voice.
Steady hands.
Careful words.

Until I started believing
my own instincts were the problem.

I wonder now

when you looked at me
in those quiet, intimate moments,
were you actually seeing me?

Or was I just a body
standing in the place
of someone else?

I underestimated you.

Your power.

The quiet, psychological precision
it took to make me doubt
what my own body already knew.

You even had the audacity
to look wounded
when I questioned your loyalty.

As if I had wronged you.
As if my suspicion
was the betrayal.

The entire time
I was right.

And somewhere deep down
you must have known that.

You saw the way my body reacted to you
The constant stomach sickness of my intuition screaming at me to wake up and listen.

I didn't want to accept what I was denying.

You saw how open I was.
How defenseless.

Did you ever feel guilt?
Even for a moment?

Or did cruelty come that easily to you
to betray someone
and then cry about it after,
letting your tears fall like liquid salt
so everyone would believe
you were hurting too?

I wonder how people would look at you after perceiving your true colors.

would they still be empathetic?

Now I replay everything
from a distance.

Like I’m watching
someone else’s life.

I look at who I was back then
how hopeful,
how blind,
how desperately I tried
to believe in you.

How hard I fought
against the truth
when it tried to surface.

And then I look at you.

I search those memories
for something real.
Anything.

Now when I think of you
I don’t see the person
I thought I loved.

I see what you really are.

And the feeling
that replaces love
is something uglier.
Heavier.

Disgust. I am repulsed.

I hate you.

I hate admitting that.
Because I believe in not feeding hatred. It makes me feel uneasy internally to feel such negativity towards someone.

But some wounds
don’t ask what you believe in.

They simply bleed.

And the truth is
I do hate you.

Not loudly.
Not violently.

But in that quiet, hollow way
that lives inside someone
after they’ve been fooled
completely.

And now I get to hear it
from everyone else
the final insult
stacked neatly
on top of the betrayal.

“I told you so.”

Author's Note

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