I can't even be mad, survival’s got you eating out the trash.
Patriarchy's got you doing their dirty work.
Baby girl,
no man has ever loved you like I do.
us.
I told you we'd always have midnight memes and each other.
Forever dressed up as a promise we could keep.
The kind that used to be comfortable,
before we filled it with his name.
We held up a mirror
to celebrate ourselves.
Raised on the opposite sides of the world,
bonded by the same silly sense of humor.
We mistook oversharing for closeness,
mistook closeness for safety.
We were girls braiding each other’s hair-
tight enough to hurt.
Look at us,
such pretty girls made of lip gloss and survival.
We wore “sisterhood” like merch,
and sold each other out at a discount.
That’s what we were raised to do:
share makeup,
share blame,
share men.
“Share men”...
the compound fracture of our faith in each other.
Source of injury: collision of worldviews.
Mechanism: violent impact.
Damage: bone piercing the soft tissue of friendship.
Prognosis: necrosis, visible scarring, permanent limp.
Recommendation: ?amputation (both patients still hoping for miracle recovery).
I thought the idea was radical:
if we share him, we're in control.
Men are abundant, I said.
Worthless. Recyclable.
Let’s share the trash!
But sharing was degrading to you.
Even if he's garbage, being "the one" he picks
validates you in a way sharing never could.
If you listen closely, does your ego whisper:
"If I can't even win trash, what does that say about me?"
I joked he was public property.
You called it disgusting.
I said sharing was feminist.
You said it was feral.
I thought calling him public would make me free.
You thought making him yours would make you whole.
You chased exclusivity as validation.
I chased detachment as self-protection.
Both moves orbiting the same wound:
wanting to feel chosen
in a world that pits women against each other.
From inside jokes and made-up words,
to speaking different languages of self-worth.
I derive mine from detachment, critique, being "above it."
You derive yours from being desired, chosen, won.
Neither is wrong.
One sharp,
one soft,
just incompatible survival strategies learned from the same broken system.
Both desperate,
Both starving
Just seated at different tables.
Isn't it funny how the mirror reflects us
but we both see completely different things?
The silver, reflecting only what they wanted,
turned into grey lines.
Small fractures,
loud snap.
We cracked the mirror open,
and found ourselves on both sides.
You fix your makeup through the fractures.
I pick glass from my tongue.
We laugh, too loud, like liars at confession.
i.
Called it protection when it was possession.
Named it sisterhood when I wanted ownership.
I see it now:
We were both scavengers at different dumpsters.
Both convinced our garbage was gourmet.
We fasted since girlhood, mistook starvation for virtue.
We fed ourselves jealousy and called it justice.
Which one of us was hungrier and more desperate?
Kindness fattens lambs for slaughter.
You’d have ruined it anyway,
and I’d have handed you the knife.
you.
When it cracked, we each grabbed a shard.
Checked our reflection in the jagged edge.
Decided the other one broke it.
Convenient how we both bled.
More convenient how we both lied about the cut.
He kept two conversations warm.
You said it wasn't that deep.
i.
Until I tested that theory.
I told myself I was just checking
Checking what? That you'd fail my loyalty test?
That he'd prove himself disgusting?
I already knew both answers
Clicked send anyway.
you.
"It's not that deep", you said.
So I went deeper.
I couldn’t stand to watch it unfold,
couldn’t stand to lose you to a ghost that wouldn’t choose.
Called it curiosity, called it solidarity.
Testing if the water was safe for you,
by diving in and nearly drowning us both.
i.
At first I said no.
He was gross, too easy.
Then I needed to know: would he? would you?
Was it betrayal, or truth waiting to be named?
Self-fulfilling prophecy dressed up as protection?
You chose him, I chose righteousness.
I chose confession like I was saving you.
Like showing you his rot would make us clean,
prayed the truth would rinse the poison out.
Instead, I just showed you
how far I’d fall for proof.
I was holding up the evidence:
Look what he'll do, look what you'll forgive,
Look what I did to prove you would.
Showed you the screenshots:
His joke: "How am I having an affair when I'm not even in a relationship?"
We should have laughed him into oblivion.
I showed you the crack, hoping we’d fill it with trust.
Instead, the mirror shattered.
Our reflections bent and twisted,
sisterhood turned shard by shard,
each piece cutting deeper than the last.
We both reached for him harder:
You, to win.
Me, to lose on purpose.
To be:
the martyr,
the exile,
the one who knew better.
I punished myself and called it dignity.
I shamed myself,
thought it would purify me.
Gave you space that you filled with him.
Exactly like I knew you would.
We fed his ego between us.
You thought it would earn you his validation.
Instead, he just got fat, and we had to split the bill for his feast.
Fine.
Let him be your trophy,
the prize for surviving me.
I hate that I still save you a seat
At a table I burned down myself.
you.
Hate that you'd probably sit there anyway.
In the ashes, pretending it's warm.
Both of us too proud to admit we're just cold.
I was already buying matches when you brought the gasoline.
We competed over who could be more devoted.
Who could sacrifice more, suffer prettier.
Then we competed over who could claim him first.
Who had more right to a man with two faces, two tabs open, two of us performing?
I won, I think.
You got the man, I got the moral high ground.
I got to be the whistleblower and the criminal.
The one who knew it was wrong and did it anyway.
Both of us alone, both of us right.
Both of us disgusted.
Me, mostly at myself.
You, mostly at me.
i.
He kept us both dangling, hungry for his ego’s meal.
I tasted bitterness in my own mouth,
self-exiled from the warmth we once claimed,
hated the game and hated myself for playing.
The crack runs through us, relentless and true,
not just between you and me,
but inside myself
the part that knew,
but still wanted to believe.
Half yours, half mine.
Both of us reflected
in the same cheap light,
fighting over a man
who couldn’t even spell “love.”
When the mirror cracked,
I was left holding shards of myself,
too sharp for comfort, too raw to lay down.
But no,
I’m not innocent.
I was raised for this.
To compete. To confess. To repent.
To call it empowerment,
while swallowing the shame whole.
You were surviving, I was too.
We just chose different weapons
And aimed them at each other.
Pulled the trigger.
Pretended to be surprised by the blood.
The damage irreducible.
The wound bleeding out into silence,
the only language left between us.
We tried to splint it with apology,
but infection set in: resentment, shame, him.
I’m not a man-hater anymore.
I hate everyone now.
Especially the women
who remind me of me.
I can't even be mad
(But I am)
You never stood a chance
(Neither did I)
No man has ever loved you like I do
(And look where that got us)