excerpt from a breakup

you stood over me, my Goliath, my King, my universe, your body rising above my own like the birth of a mountain, like the plates of the earth merging upwards into something rocky, glacial, impenetrable. Something I could never conquer. Something I feared.

before today, I thought your anger was something you changed into as if you shed your softer self for one that was swollen and scalding. but there, as your shape blocked out the sun, I finally saw you; jagged edges and vile speech, clenched fists and poison. and I understood: anger was not something you felt, it was something you were. anything else was a facade, a mural I hand-painted onto your bare and broken walls in my own attempt to recreate you.

and then it happened, you crumbled. suddenly you were an avalanche, a cascade of falsehoods all crashing at our feet. and when the dust cleared, you were not Goliath anymore. you were small enough to step over. you were a molecule, not a universe. and you were small enough to survive.