on a bad day

if you would only look into a mirror and see the pain that you've given me, this undying chain of reciprocity and the viciousness with which you love terribly, perhaps i would be set free from this cycle of self-deprecating torture i put myself through by being with you.
maybe one day, i'll be able to cut you out of my skin, cutting away the way you come inside me without asking if you could come in, the way you hold me by the throat and choke what's left of happy on my breath teaching hope how to fade away like a drifting cloud about to rain on a clear day, dripping tears like children i never meant to part with. i'm left to start over with nothing all over again. but even then, even when the nothing becomes something i learn to live with, i hold onto the idea that maybe today will be the day i find the courage within me to say what i mean and cut you out of my skin.