“it was a Tuesday when you realized that he didn’t love you.
you were brushing your teeth with the toothbrush he bought you for
your seventeenth birthday, and the bristles were all frayed like the hem
of your favorite skirt.
your gums started bleeding and you spit pink toothpaste into the sink.
it was a Tuesday when he called you up and said
“I think I met someone else”
and you thought maybe you should have seen this coming,
given your track record, but you don’t cry
you tell him its okay and you hang up.
its a Tuesday and you just grew up too fast, now you’re
trying to be calm like an adult even though the teenager in you
is throwing glass against a wall and hoping to step in the shards on the floor.
You want to be strong, you don’t need him to love you,
you say this so many times that you don’t mean it at all.
Don’t cry, you think
don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry
you are stronger than this
it’s a Tuesday and you throw out that old toothbrush
but your gums are still bleeding.”