Forgive me, cunning las, for not handing over my still-born, still bleeding heart when you begged me to prove my dedication.

I have lived a journey scoured in humiliation.
It was the mutilation that hurt the most. When he charred my trust and devoured it like Sunday roast.

'I like you the most,' was my reconciliation before doing the walk of shame past his mother, who liked me the least.

I was never his queen, but another disposable piece in the game that he controlled.
I had lost.

Both my blooming flower and a thirst for life that quenched me in my deserted, alienated hours.

I don't know how I ever let him hang me out with his stained sheets to dry, and I do not cry for him but for you.

You who had received the damaged goods, the leftovers wrapped in a...