Stuck

I want to go home and never return to this wicked world
But I am too weak to break the chains of my mortal coil
And too soft to free myself from pain by delegating it to others

Aphasia

There are no words in the English language that adequately express the turmoil of trauma or the emotional storms that fill its sails. My terror has always left my mouth as shrieks and giggles.

Grip

I'm slipping inside myself
I'm crawling under a blanket of desensitivity
Trying to discern reality through a wicked haze
Sometimes I feel myself come up for air
And I remember what clarity looks like
But my memory is short and soon I am under again

Birthday Bruja

On the anniversary of their birth
In the throes of consciousness

Safe Spaces

Why am I responsible
For finding a comfortable space
In a system that
Doesn't even think I exist

Intimate

This was supposed to be my sanctuary
It was built on fault lines and rotten wood
But it was mine and I called it home
But lately it has conspired to
Evict the soul inside of it
To empty itself of its life force
And crumble into ash
My body promised my soul at conception
"In sickness and in health,
Til death do us part"
I don't understand why it insists on
Choosing the soil in a grave over me
It is the most intimate betrayal

Get Out

You don't know what it's like to have someone you don't want inside of you
And to never be able to get all of them out of you

Exit

Can't tell if it's what I really want
Or if I'm just looking for justification
For my escape

In the Hole

Depression traps a bully inside your skull
And locks your heart outside the room
And begs your fingers to tear away
At the smallest pieces of yourself
In an effort to disappear into thin air unnoticed
It destabilizes all your values and plans
And dismantles your identities
Until there's nothing left of you
And I feel myself slip away

Honestly

I feel I have reached the end of my rope
And now I'm left unravelling the ends
To tie them together again
In a single long thread
To try to reach the finish line
And I'm running out of ends to tie

Boy Bye

I escaped you
And I'll dance at your funeral
Dressed in black
I'll be spinning widdershins
Undoing everything you ever did
I guarantee my memory will outlast yours
You won't be forgiven
But you will be forgotten

Cleave

Stooped down to examine the unconsidered
Moving through the open mouth of the rat
I saw my pain designed
I was spectator and architect
Dropped into the lake of restoration
Knowing full well an elixir will never satisfy
Beasts and demons of chronic debilitation
A disorder demanding transformation
I am its subject
Too broken to remember restitution
Don't know where the platform disembarks
When I am a member of myself
And I can't dissolute.

Memory Games

Five years trying to forget what you did to me

But I can't forget so I'm emptying myself 

Of your plentiful poisons instead

I'm just afraid not to feel anything

At all, even anger, when I'm done with this

When I left you, you told me, ironically,

You wanted to marry me

But honestly, I can't think of anything worse

Than being locked in your prison

Until death, probably mine, do we part 

I realized I would never 

Beat you at your own game

I realized, too, that I had already lost

So long before that moment

And I left you

And I will leave you again and again

Dropping memories of you like bread crumbs. 

Sorry It's Been A While

Sorry for not reaching out sooner
I was just scared that it would
Start a chain of events that would
Isolate me further
But I just isolated myself instead

Sorry for not reaching out sooner
I was just scared that it would
Remind you how long it's been
Since I last reached out
So I just isolated myself instead

Sorry for not reaching out sooner
I was just scared that I would
Say the wrong thing and
Make a fool of us both
So I just isolated myself instead

Sorry for not reaching out sooner
I was just scared that you would
Offer help with good intention
And I would be ungracious
But I just isolated myself instead

Sorry for not reaching out sooner
I was just scared that I would
Ask for help and you'd refuse
And I would feel rejected
So I just isolated myself instead

Sorry for not reaching out sooner
I was just scared that I would
Accept the love around me
And it wouldn't be enough
So I just isolated myself instead.

Love Neglected

Why did you teach me to hate my body?
You shamed me young
For looking older
While older men leered
At me for the same reason.
I learned to resent my body through shame.
Then you taught me to hate your body,
The body I would grow into
While telling me to enjoy the stares now
Because you don't get those anymore.
You implied that a fat body
Is a body absent of value.
You never taught me how to love.

Cut Me Down

Cut me down
Scream at me
Flecks of spit
Hit my face
As you flail
Your arms wildly
And shove an accusatory
Finger in my face
Just like my daddy used to
And I look up at you
With love in my eyes
And apologies on my lips