Your favorite phrase to take advantage of was: "because I love you.."

It was the words you spat at me in the eyes of the public,

The way you gripped my arm so tight. 

I never got an explanation, no not one. 

For I thought that I was the reason for all those nights

And the reason you had become so numb. 

Because I love you, I let you take control:

Hands grazing my body to show that I am no longer my own.

The snarls and marks you left on me prove the love I wanted for me.

As I’ve grown, and now that I am older, I realize that it never could be. 

Because I love you, I chose to let you go;

For you became the monster I was always afraid to show.

I learned what love is now and finally I’m set free.

The dawn rose again and yet you never came,

For love wasn’t in your heart, it was merely in your brain.

Because I love you, I deleted your number. 

I erased all your apologetic messages, 

And burned all the photographs,

But I still can’t rid the ways you loved me

Etched in beneath, my forehead. 

It’s always there, in the front of my mind. 

I can’t help but think about you all the time. 

Knowing that I shouldn’t makes me think about it more, 

Despite all the nights that you made my eyes so sore.

My mother still asks about you, and even some of my friends;

But they don't know that all the while, you were just playing pretend. 

Because I love you, I let you beat me down:

Physically, mentally, and eventually into the ground. 

I’m not the same as I was before, 

For you showed me what your love was like

While I laid on the cold, hard floor. 

That is not love.