sometimes
                                                       ­                         my
                                     ­ brain
                       doesn’t
                                                       ­     work

right
                                                ­                               and

                             my

                                              thoughts

     ­                                         scatter

               ­                                                    like
                               beads

                                     spilled
                               on
                                                              ­                 tile

floor

I’m not going to use 5,000 similes in this poem.
Why?
Because your bones do not tickle my throat like constellations,
Instead you abused me.
And I’m not going to make abuse into a pretty aesthetic poem.
I’m going to speak it how it is.

People assume abuse is pretty because people write about it in pretty terms.
But no, abuse is scary and messy.
It’s the forgetting your birthday and how you were born.
It’s the significant other hitting your thighs because you’re “too fat”.
It’s not getting coffee in the morning because “you’re a big girl” and can sweat out the hangover
-you didn’t ask for- off in a few hours.
And most importantly, you can’t forget how much of a **** you’d look like if you shaved your head, so you don’t.
Abuse isn’t “wrap me in your arms and put me in a choke hold so i can feel what it felt like to be mom”  
ABUSE IS NOT AESTHETIC
ABUSE IS NOT AESTHETIC
ABUSE IS NOT AESTHETIC

I can’t say it enough. I can’t phrase it different ways. I can’t say “hey dude look, abuse ain’t cool
man” BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW IT AS IT IS. AT FACE VALUE.

I dreamt about so many things.
I dreamt about my monsters fleeing.
And my **** never happening.
I dreamt you never hit me and never gave me a concussion.
I had this wonderful dream you never left me.

I've survived 9 suicide attempts.
Been in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) twice
And
Lived to tell the tale.

I've been molested and *****.
Been able to tell my story in multiple ways.
And
Lived to tell the tale.

I'm not a survivor.
No.
I'm a liver.
I've done my surviving phase. That was miserable.
Now?
Now I live.

I called my mom today because I thought she stops panic.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I think my mom’s the one who started the panic. She started the panic by having me three months early.
She started the panic by not believing my cousin ****** me happened.
She started the panic by putting my in the foster care system.
She started the panic by killing all the solar systems in you.
She started the panic by murdering the a e s t h e t i c.
She started the panic in all the one million ways you can think of.

drank water
from my tap
get off I said
do not take my mind
the past belongs to you
not I

There’s a bird with one wing
that still flies,
but only in circles
and so it sings many songs
where the birds with two wings
never bothered to sing more than one