nasty cunt

he called me a nasty cunt

which was rich

coming from a man who treated loyalty

like an itch

a man who sampled every sympathy in sight

then claimed a moral height

a man who wandered door to door

and somehow thought that i was the whore

i almost laughed

i should have laughed

instead i sat and did the math

all those hours

all those days

all those patient, careful ways

i listened to the same old grief

the same old tragedies on repeat

the same old speech

the same old song

the same old reasons he'd been wronged

i could have earned a pension

from the amount of attention

i paid to every bruise upon his pride

while mine stood waiting off to the side

he called me a nasty cunt

all right then

fair enough

and julius caesar died from a paper cut

and the titanic sank because it lacked a tub

we're all entitled to a theory

no matter how absurd

especially men who run out of arguments

and reach instead for a word

that was his gift

his grand technique

whenever reality made him look weak

he'd find a mirror

grow alarmed

and accuse somebody else of the harm

a classic trick

a solid play

blame the person who stayed

blame the person who cared

blame the person who carried the weight

while you wandered around

arriving late

to your own life

with your own knife

wondering why everything bled

he called me a nasty cunt

and that's the joke

that's the bit

i spent so long believing in him

while he spent so little deserving it

i thought i was building a future

brick by brick

he was setting fire to the blueprint

and calling me sick

what a waste

to pour devotion down a drain

and receive contempt in exchange

you called me a nasty cunt

i call you something far more grim

a man so busy fleeing himself

he never noticed

he was the problem all along