“No one loves you like I do”

The words that once seemed lovely

Burrow into the crevices of my mind

Right next to “you’re not good enough” and “you’ll never achieve anything”

 

“No one loves you like I do”

There was a time I used to find comfort in those words 

Like a shot of coffee liqueur snuck into a cup of hot chocolate

Instead of twelve dollar tequila thrown back up 

 

“No one loves you like I do”

I used to fall asleep to the wonder those words left me in

Instead of wondering when they stopped being true

My eyes burning holes into the textured ceiling of my dorm room

 

“No one loves you like I do”

I question if you understand what you were saying

If you know you made me reexamine every relationship I had

Like checking my answers four times on a test I know I’ve aced

 

“No one loves you like I do”

The syllables come creeping back into my ears with the fall wind 

Changes in season bring me back to the time when you were mine

Or at least I thought you were

 

“No one loves you like I do”

I’ve realized that wasn’t completely a lie

Like how not being totally honest isn’t the same as being dishonest about something

There were slivers and shards of truth in those consonants

 

“No one loves you like I do”

No one loved me like you did because you did not love me

 

And I can pinpoint the day I stopped being naive

When I realized that though you hid the blades you still cut me with your silence

The day I began to understand that love is not as fragile as you made it out to be

And it was not my obligation to convince you to love me

 

“No one loves you like I do”

You, my first love, are right

They love me better

And you will never understand

 

I have found love in my best friend with hair the color of the sun sitting on her shoulders

I have found love in the boy who comforted me after the worst night of my life 

I have found love in my mother at eleven at night on a tuesday after a glass of wine

I have found love in my roommate who buys me chocolate after catching me crying alone

 

“No one loves you like I do”

And I hope no one does ever again