and only then

you don’t know
that you’ve been
betrayed
until you feel
shards of glass
inside your thoughts
and you begin
to make yourself
at home
with the sinking
motion
inside your heart that
refuses to cease.

it’s when your
mind
can finally replay those
broken memories
on a loop
without tasting
heartache or sadness
but more of
an anguished sorrowness
that they drew the
dagger on you
and that
you let them stab
you.

because that’s the
sad part of
betrayal –

we give our
trust
so unguardly
that even when
we’re held at gunpoint,
it’s only after
our organs have
been ripped out
and we’ve lived
through the pain
do we pause to ponder
what that
incoherent emotion is.

only then
do we acknowledge
that we’ve been
betrayed
and only then do
we register why
the pain burrows
so deeply
through our bones
in the way it
does.