Hello, You

My reaction to the series finale of the Netflix show You!

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it lol

TW: talk of domestic and intimate partner violence

He’s not your average Joe

A passionate writer

A well-read intellectual

A hopeless romantic

A fake feminist

An obsessive stalker

A sociopath in denial

A sick serial killer

Who continually eludes consequences

Insulated from cause and effect

As a white man

Deadly intent on seeking the One

Or else

Deceptively charming

Manipulation and control

Wrapped up in a cute bow

A pretty, perfect package

Too good to be true

What woman could refuse

A “nice guy” who buries red flags

So deep that he strikes

Gaslighting gold

And chooses soothing words

With calculated precision?

Striking the right chords

Wrapping them up in

A whirlwind of poetry

A flight of fancy

He idealizes flawed women

Who inevitably fail to meet

His storybook standards

Then he demonizes

And demolishes them

A vicious cycle

He soothes his conscience

By saying he’s saving women

From abusive men

When HE is the abuser

He eliminates everyone

His lovers care about

From his kill list

Cages women in his

Narrow constructs

Of who they should be

And crosses them off last

He leaves devastation in his wake

Every city skyline he sleeps under

Every false identity

He erases his sin with

Every red eye flight he takes

Leaving tear-streaked skies

Every woman he touches

Conveniently casts his victims

As the abusers

Controls a narrative where

He is always the victim

And his heartbreakers

Are always the villains

A waking nightmare

But the show’s writers

Finally granted the surviving women

Safety and relief

They broke his cycle of violence

And went on to thrive without him

Even if not everyone survived him

Flashbacks eclipsed the screen

Every time I watched

The last man I loved

Took my heart

My body

My trust

And almost took my life

I fully believe he would have

His sadistic desires

Gleaming in his eyes

Bloodlust dripping from

His deranged grin

He told me when we first met,

“I’m a sociopath.”

I laughed and didn’t believe him

And fuck, do I regret it

Always believe people

When they show and tell you

Who they are

I escaped my cage

And murderous fate

But with a broken wing

A shattered spirit

My bones are still knitting

Back together

The scar tissue where my heart was

Still healing over

I got an ex parte order

And pressed charges

Successfully

But I’m not fully satisfied

Years have passed

Gone up like smoke

But I haven't been able to love

Anyone or anything the same since

To the broken men

Who broke me:

True justice wouldn’t be you

Rotting away in a cage

It wouldn’t even be burning for eternity

Justice would be

A life where you never grew up

To be wounded, angry men

To begin with

With mothers that coddled you

Fathers that bottled you up

Until you exploded

Justice isn’t

A sexist society

That either rewards you

For your violence

Or condemns you to lonely existence

Where you’re shit out of luck

And you self-destruct

Justice is a world

Where women can flit about

Free from fear

No shadows to stalk them home

And they’re not blamed for

The “male loneliness epidemic”

Rather, men own their pain

And stop forcing everyone else

To pay for their pasts

Learn to take no for an answer

Without unleashing aggression

And your average Joe

Proves he’s a “nice guy”

By actions alone

Not trying to merely prove a point

But too many men still strut around

Consequence free

On cutthroat sprees

Profiting off their fantasies

And too many women

Lose their spark

Their voices stolen

Their souls extinguished

But finally a murderous man

Consumed only by

His self-serving misogyny

Met his reckoning

At least one fictional predator does

Goodbye, You