Where The Fuck Were You

Don’t tell me you care now.

Don’t show up now with soft apologies

and hands held out like you ever held mine

when it mattered.

Where the fuck were you

when I shattered?

When I was sitting on my bathroom floor,

ripping breaths out of the air

just to stay alive

one more minute?

When my hands shook so hard

I couldn’t even hold myself together?

You say you didn’t know.

But I was screaming

not with volume,

but with silence loud enough

to crack the walls of my own chest.

I needed someone.

Not someday.

Not later.

Not when it was convenient.

I needed someone

then.

And you

you were busy being comfortable,

busy being fine,

busy staying clean from the mess

I was drowning in.

Don’t you dare call yourself my friend

if you only show up

after the storm has passed

to tell me I should’ve knocked louder.

I broke.

I bled.

I begged the universe to let me breathe again.

And you?

You were nowhere.

So don’t come to me now

with your guilt-dipped sympathy

and your too-late concern.

I survived without you.

Remember that.

Because now that I am rising

you don’t get to claim you helped me stand.