You who have inhabited me in the deepest and most broken place, are going, going - Anne Sexton

"Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself... ("You, Doctor Martin")"

I do have that bad habit, so female, of taking people at their word.

Do you like me?”
No answer.
Silence bounced, fell off his tongue
and sat between us
and clogged my throat.
It slaughtered my trust.
It tore cigarettes out of my mouth.
We exchanged blind words,
and I did not cry,
I did not beg,
but blackness filled my ears,
blackness lunged in my heart,
and something that had been good,
a sort of kindly oxygen,
turned into a gas oven.