Sentence Prison

It wasn't the night we met
that ruined me.
It was three -
no four - years later
when you labeled me
the dream girl
you always wanted -
- a dream of a girl
in a world
I could never fit in
or belong
or could be.

I heard what I wanted,
but you said the words -
I just ignored the grammar
and the order.

It was all there -
for a single moment -
the life I'd imagined we'd share
breathed into existence
by words
that have caged me ever since.

I was never enough
except for one night
in a Burger King
where you said everything
I wanted to hear;
where truth I knew
and you still don't
dropped from your lips
like atom bombs filled
with glitter and dust
instead of napalm and indifference.

I can't remember now
what you said
or how it stopped my heart
the way it did.
They were just syllables
and punctuation -
nothing more, nothing less.

Words strung together
like old Christmas lights
you hope will set the tree
aglow
and not on fire.

Words I have made my prison,
locked myself in
and thrown away the key.

I'm still sitting
in that booth,
listening,
though it's been years
since you left.