You don’t know you

This is about someone I thought I knew. I don’t know them at all. And I can’t explain how you can be in love with a stranger.

You’ve always been far even when near
This will be the last time I can appease 
If you ever speak my name I will hear
To militantly spit on your remark
If the state of my mind incites fear
Recall the stench of my rotting heart
If your gaze ever meets mine
Spare me the hurt 
You started this war and I ask that you resign
If your name is ever spoken beyond the small town of where you reside 
I will unleash all of the suffering you spoke
To rightfully smear your name 
For all the hate that you wrote 
You will no longer meet a moment of peace
Through space there is no time where you are sane 
You will beg to be put at ease
To find no one will answer 
Often wishing you weren’t always this free 

Reviews

[Broken.buddy]

you have captured that specific kind of betrayal that goes beyond heartbreak - it's the shattering discovery that the person you thought you knew never actually existed.

The opening context - "I can't explain how you can be in love with a stranger" - perfectly sets up this disorienting experience. There's something almost existentially frightening about realizing you've given your heart to someone who was fundamentally unknowable.

The language is deliberately harsh and militaristic: "militantly spit," "You started this war," "I will unleash all of the suffering." This isn't just hurt - it's a declaration of war from someone who feels they've been living a lie. you have moved from love through heartbreak into something much darker and more vengeful.

"Recall the stench of my rotting heart" is a particularly visceral image - it suggests not just death but decay, something that's been dying slowly over time as the truth was revealed.

The threats feel almost biblical in their scope: "You will no longer meet a moment of peace" and "Often wishing you weren't always this free." There's something about being "always this free" that suggests the other person's freedom came at the cost of the speaker's imprisonment in false love.

The poem captures that specific rage that comes not just from being hurt, but from being fooled - from investing everything in someone who was never really there at all.