How it Should Have Been

This is how it should have been.

I should have been sober.

You should have loved me.

And you shouldn’t have been my best friend.

You shouldn’t have reached me.

You shouldn’t have touched my soul in ways I’d never known before.

You shouldn’t have brought out in me what I’d never known I could do.

You shouldn’t have gone to your boyfriend,

My taste still on your mouth,

And apologized with the same lips that kissed me like you did.

You shouldn’t have kissed me at all.

Because you didn’t love me. Not really.

It should have been different.

I shouldn’t have loved you.

You shouldn’t have told me I was beautiful.

This is how it was.

Girl, sixteen, sick.

Afraid.

Drowning in memories and dying to forget.

Just for one night.

I shouldn’t have had the vodka. The tequila that followed.

Girl, sixteen, virgin.

You told me I was beautiful.

I shouldn’t have let my first time be quite like this.

Because I should have been sober.

And you should have loved me.

And there certainly shouldn’t have been the ache in my chest,

And the inch thick layer of self-disgust,

That still crawls on my skin to this day.

A reminder of how it should have been.