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Abby Carpenter Sep 2016
The first glass was smiles,
He’d tell us that he loved us
Or that we made him proud
Warm glow from the fire reflected the sloshing contents of his drink on the walls
A blurred dance of celestial lines and shapes.
We took in his light like the inhale of a breath,
Feeling so glad to have earned his praises.

Fifth glass was slurred words
Crawling from the corners of his mouth like a rat escaping a sewer,
The smiles were gone.
We stood still with anxious ticks unfolding before us
Afraid of what would happen if we were to speak
The fire was fading, the dance nearing an end

Glass eight brought anger
Shouts spiraled from his chest, a tornado that we couldn’t cross
Words flew by us,
Glasses flew by us,
Fists flew by us.
Too scared to move, our backs pressed against the wall
We tried our best to disappear
I closed my eyes and held my hands together hoping that the small amount of pressure would be enough to make him lay his hands on someone else that night

Twelfth glass brought sleep.
With his body still we could move again,
His neck crooked to the side, an empty glass in his hand.
No liquid left to reflect.
A sleeping serpent laying in the center of his destruction
Broken glasses and thrown picture frames at his feet,
It became hard to believe he had caused this a moment ago

Now seven years later I find myself at a party
The bass so loud I could feel my body shake,
Red cup in my hand, liquid sloshing with familiarity
Without a pause I am drinking one glass,
Then two,
Then three,
I wonder how I let myself become the thing I fear most like a reverse metamorphosis into my childhood,
And now when I look in the mirror I don’t see me,
I’m stuck looking into his lifeless eyes
And I don’t know how I can change this,
How can I run when the monster resides inside of me?
I don’t know how I can separate myself from him when every time I see a drink I hear my mother’s scream
Blurred images of memory and reality surround me and I am once again too afraid to move
Back pressed against the wall, hands pressed together.
I am my childhood nightmares,
Completing the cycle and making ends meet
Once again I am back in that trailer and I wonder if I ever left
Abby Carpenter Jul 2017
There are coffee stains on my notebook.
soft brown plots colonize the corners,
Smearing the ink into almost unreadable scratches.
I love my daily coffee so much that I let it ruin my note book.
And like my morning coffee you have become a staple in my life.
A part of my routine,
Coffee, class, and then you.

And I do not write love poems.
The words never fit into my mouth right,
talking about love always felt like tossing marbles in my mouth,
blurry and unbalanced.
They never came out how I wanted.
But for you I'm willing to try,
I will fight my own tongue until I can tell you what I mean.
Until I can say that I haven't gone a day without coffee since the sixth grade,
and that the idea of going a day without you makes me sick.
Until you know that I will hold your hand like the handle of my favorite mug,
that I'll love any chip or crack you have.
And if you ever feel bitter,
Please know that I will be right here,
because I take my coffee black
And I'm not scared of being burned
But like my morning coffee you’ve started to leave stains on my sleeves,
my hands are tinted from all the times I’ve held yours,
and when I look down and see the small blotches,
I smile,
Because I think of you.
Abby Carpenter Jun 2016
I can tell by the scrunch in my sisters nose when she sees a gay couple that I will never come out
It’s not a comment, it’s not even audible
But I can see the distaste on her face

I can tell by the way she clings to her bible on a Sunday morning that I will never share my true self
She clutches it like a security blanket, trying to protect herself from the sin in the world
Where I see love she sees a blanket of immorality wrapping them up and taking away the good

I know how she feels when she sees sin in others
But how would she feel if she knew the sin was inside of me
Abby Carpenter Jul 2017
I am sorry that I do not love you.
I am sorry that I have never loved you.
I am sorry that I use food as a weapon.
An arsenal packed with things that you cannot have.
I am sorry that I am always counting.
That even when I say I have stopped I am still counting.
I am sorry that an apple is not an apple, but 95 calories.
Food is not nutrition but a number.
I am sorry that you have gone hungry in a house full of food.
The cupboards call to you but I stay put,
Hunger keeps you safe.
I am sorry that I have hurt you more than anyone else.
I am sorry that I don't care.
Your well being is not my top priority.
I am sorry that I do jumping jacks until I faint.
Drink cups of dirt tasting tea.
Pretend to enjoy skim milk.
All to be thin.
I am sorry that after all this you are still not thin.
No matter what I do you are not thin.
I count, I cry, I run.
You are not thin.
I am sorry that thin is your new purpose.
You wanted to be a teacher.
Now you are the monster I created.
Trapped in the corner of the life I destroyed..
I did this to you.
I made you this way.
You deserved better.
Abby Carpenter Jun 2016
There will be a day when I feel like life is worth living
There will be a day when I can get out of bed without wishing I had died in my sleep

I am more than a dark storm cloud of emotions
I am more than the never leaving ghost that haunts my every move

I have value
I have thoughts and words and worth

I deserve happiness
Abby Carpenter Jul 2016
I said I didn't want you
but it still hurt when you left
I saw you for what you are
I thought you could never be tied down

But I see you with her
tied around her wrist like a ribbon
and I knew that I had made a mistake
I doubted you and for that I am sorry
I'm sorry that I pushed you away
pushed you into her arms
I'm sorry that your smile is for her now

Logically I know that I made the right choice
we would never have worked
I'm to heavy with the wait of monogamy
and you, to light, care free

I just didn't think your moving on would have hurt this much
Abby Carpenter Jun 2016
I tell myself to like boys
But the way you look in that dress has overtaken my thoughts
The way it skips along your thighs
Inviting me to dance
The way in cinches at your waste
Calling me to wrap my arms around you

I tell myself to smile when boys talk to me
I encourage my heart beat to quicken when they hold my hand
But all I can think of is the way you look in that dress
The way it shows of the skin on your shoulders
The way your skin would feel under the soft pads of my fingertips
The way your hair falls down like a canopy
Beckoning for me to come closer

I tell myself that we can just be friends
But the way you look in that dress tell me friends will never be enough
I tell myself this is wrong
But how can the way I feel be wrong?
How can the butterflies that start in my stomach and erupt through my whole body be wrong?
How can the way you look in that dress
be wrong?
Abby Carpenter Feb 2017
When I was in the fourth grade I didn’t understand magnets.
You told me that they were like a boy and a girl,
that the positives and negatives stuck together,
but with two girls they would just repel.
Repel,
as if the idea of two girls being together was so awful that mother nature herself would come down to pull them apart.
I think about that a lot.

And now I’m standing here in front of you,
the words dancing behind my tongue,
and I am fighting to keep them down.
I want to tell you that I’m finally happy,
that I found someone,
that when I hold her hand I don't want to run.
I want you to know that I love her,
and that I didn't actually know what love was until now.
I want you to know that with her everything is brighter,
and that I take back my feminist rants because if she were my wife I’d always cook dinner.
the love songs I listen to finally make sense,
and hell,
maybe Romeo and Juliet weren't crazy after all.

I know this might be confusing.
But before her I was soil,
And now I’m a bed of roses.
I’m sorry for hiding this for so long.
and now it seems like a college phase,
but if we’re being honest I always knew.
I knew at junior prom when my date’s hand made me recoil.
I knew when I never really hit that boy crazy phase.
and I knew when I saw her,
When we watched a movie on the grass and I laid my head on her shoulder,
and I felt like I was home.

And I’ve tried to change,
if I knew how I would.
When Mom died you said you would always love me.
I hope you meant it,
because I’ve tried to pick between you.
Take you, leave her.
Take her, leave you.
But I can’t.
So please don’t make me.
Abby Carpenter Jun 2016
The words ring in my ears like a bell
“She’s so fat I can’t even stand it”
The echo haunts me as I try and hide myself
I try to hunch over, **** in, take up as little space as possible
Become invisible

But I don’t want to be invisible, I don’t even want to be thin
I want to soar like a bird
Stretch my wings and feel the wind run through them like flowers in a field
I’ve been told that I’m too big before and I always assumed they meant in my stomach or my thighs
But really I think they just meant my mind

— The End —