Elizabeth Dehaan
Poetry

Trophy Wife 

I will never be someone’s trophy wife. 

Eight year old me told myself. 

It’s an odd thing for a child to say, but I did. 

Maybe I was beginning to understand how love worked. 

That some people only want to own you, but can never love you. 

But somewhere down the line, I forgot my promise to myself. 

And became your trophy. 

 I confused manipulation with truth. Possession with admiration. Lust with love.

We started playing a game, before I knew the rules. 

But you did. 

Withholding your affection as though it was a prize. 

I longed for it. 

In those brief moments, I felt as though I was the only one in the world. 

Your trophy. 

But the thing about trophies, is that they end up on a shelf admired, but never really valued. 

You would tell people about your trophy. 

You would take me out and show me off because it made you look good. 

A boost to your shallow self-esteem. 

But you couldn’t love me. 

 No one loves a trophy. They love the conquest. 

They love the accolades.

 The pats on the back, with people admiring how you could get me. 

Your trophy. 

I allowed myself to sit on the shelf, collecting dust, hoping that one day you would see me as a person, not just an object. 

But that day never came. 

Every time you took me off the shelf your broken parts scratched away at my shine. 

The prize you most wanted until you had me. 

All this time I thought you were admiring my beauty, but you were really admiring how you looked in my eyes. 

Because in my eyes, you were the sun. 

Everything I did revolved around you. 

Time wore on and one day I looked in the mirror and couldn’t recognize my own reflection.  I had become Dull. Tarnished. Broken. 

In order to love you, I had to dim my shine. 

In order to love you, I had to lose myself. 

The deepest part of me was scared to admit that if I stopped being your trophy, what would I be? 

I had believed your lie that only you could love me. 

Like a reverse came of candyman, I had to repeat the words that I told myself as a child. 

I would never be your trophy again. 

I will never be your trophy. 

I will never be your trophy. 

Eventually these words became stronger than your lies. 

And I found the strength again of my inner child. 

But there’s a lesson in every heartbreak. 

 Maybe I had to be broken in order to put myself back together. 

Maybe it took becoming your trophy for me to realize that I was the prize all along.