The beautiful girl with the raven hair.
A sleeve of pain she doesn’t remember.
A past of stolen innocence and growing up too fast.
A life of raising her sisters but losing her daughter, because money doesn’t grow on trees and 22 weeks was all the time she could get.
A heart of gold but a facade of steel, too scared to let anyone back in.
A soul that rages of fire, power, and more grit than anyone I’ve met.
A future that my heart wishes for her more than she will ever know.
She will get everything she desires.
Her sobriety will be the medal around her neck.
Her life will be the trophy she won back.
And her beautiful children will be the emblem of strength that let them be born.

In the midst of our passion,
I tried to make you show your hand.
You were losing your poker face,
I thought your inhibitions were gone.

But when I said “tell me what you want”
You replied “for you to be happy and healthy”.

And that shattered the dam.
The wall that held back the sea splintered.
And I let you see me drown in my pain.

I told you how letting you gorge on me
Made me the kind of sad I could control.
It was a shallow kind of sad, one that could be fixed with scotch tape.
I ripped the adhesive off  of the shallow sad
When the deep dark sad became too much.

I told you how letting you gorge on me
Made me feel useful, even if it validated everything he told me.
I don’t care that my body is nothing more than something to be ******,
At least I’m doing my friend a favor.

So even if I can’t be happy and healthy right now,
And even if you know that,
At least we can see each other for what we are
As I let you feed his desires for me,
And you let me feed my desire for pain.

My skin remained untarnished for 81 days.
But last night, it became too much.
5 cuts on my wrist;

One for every year I let you abuse me

You, my sweet boy, are yellow.
Not sick or jaundiced, but the hue of a cancary on an April afternoon.
The pastel tone painted on Easter eggs every year.
And the bright shade of the walls in the room where I met you.

You didn’t live up to him.
Not even close.
Your hard exterior weighed me down,
Your inferiority was an inconvenience.

But you had scars and so did I.
You had a story that I’ll never know,
Of the place and people you left to be played by me.
They labeled you used but I took you anyway.

We bonded slowly but surely,
Each note in our symphony coming out less strained.
I just wanted to create.
I wanted to make something important.
He couldn’t do that for me.

But we, my darling, will accomplish the impossible, stretching to octaves unheard of.
Our hearts beating to the rhythm of our future,
Our tone touching their souls.
Take a bow, my love,for your scratches and cracks don’t matter here.

I shared myself with you.
Whether you could hear it or not, through every chord I played I screamed and bellowed and sobbed out the story that created the mess I’ve become.
But we created something magnificent together.
My pain was the consistent and simple base.
Your intricate  melody understood and validated every drop of sorrow that hit the keys.
The last 10 years I've been a product of my symptoms.
My instrument rusted scrap metal from the unshed tears of a 5 year old child that never got to grow up.
I wasn’t her today.
In that chapel, improvising and forging music from thin air, I was radiant shining through the trauma of a girl who was too young to know her body wasn’t something to be abused.
You helped me do that.
You knew what I needed without having to communicate.
For those few minutes you knew me like no one else ever could.
Your crescendo set my life into motion, and in a major key.
No one else will ever join me for measure one of this symphony.
We started this piece with a love of music and the lord, and I couldn’t have requested anything better.

I really want to believe you.
I want to believe in the fact that you are done exploiting me.
I want us to not have an expiration date.
And even though you comfort me like warm milk on a cold night,
I think it will eventually spoil.

It’s hard not to feel used.
Friends don’t treat friends like this.
I can see why people think I’m being manipulated.
I probably am being manipulated.
But I’ll savor it until you decide you’ve had enough.

I didn’t realize you used it against me.
When day 4 was erased and turned into another day 1,
I still thought it was all my fault, that I didn’t give you enough.

Now though, I see you are a monster.
I refuse to blame myself for being naïve.
I’m no stranger to abuse, but your method will haunt me for years.
While wielding the sword of my own horrors, you whispered the vows that would save your reputation and keep my loyalty even when I’m empty and broken.
You soothed the old wound and turned my wildfire into a flickering candle. But my wax turned cold on impact when you tried to slice my flesh when I was most vulnerable.

I let you draw blood, numbed by your manipulation.
But now you are gone, and your anesthesia wore off.
I see you now.
You are not my friend.
You are not my enemy.
You are just a terrible young man who’s name I will eventually forget.
Because you are nothing to me anymore.

You used the oldest play in the book,
But I’m a sucker for antiques and I’m optimistic to a fault.
You said don’t be worried,
But why is this time different?
We’ve always ruined it with our vicious cycle,
And the venom is just sweet enough that even though we are rotting, we still want seconds.
Please don’t let this be poison disguised as nectar.
Next time, I won’t come back.

Trusting you like this
Feels like sharing one breath;
The drumroll before the kiss.
Your exhale becoming my inhale.
Your forehead on mine.
Our eyelashes grazing each other.

Our proximity is electric and charged,
but innocent and patient.
Only taking what we are given,and
Worshipping every broken piece like the
Promises we made that beautiful day in November.

I know we aren’t together,
But this can’t just be friends.
My heart is a canteen,
carrying the entire ocean.
It’s salty, and the tide is always high.
The waves are where ships go to wreck.
But when you saw it in its entirety, you recognized its depth.

And you called it amazing.
You said you would cherish it always.
I want the lifeguard to reel you in and lock you out,
I do not trust my current, you will be torn out to sea.
But you said you’d always protect me.
And the absurdity of that makes me want to believe you.

“You’re good”
“Don’t apologize for needing help”
“Don’t worry, I got you and I’ll always protect you”

My heart is held in the hands of people who like to break things.
Chaos is their default, and
everything is my fault.
Why do the broken always find me?

They think I am a mirror, but I am a window.
Not fractured like them, but convient and translucent.
They keep their hands firm against my cold surface and stare through me while they continue to look for something.

My mosaic is just not for them.

I promised I wouldn’t do it.
But you promised I was more important than ***.
I guess we both lied.

I wish I didn’t have to get better.
I wish I didn’t have anything to get better from.
I wish I could want it all to end.

But I don’t.
I love and I feel and I scream and I sob,
And deep down I want all of that.
But right now it hurts so bad.
The deep dark sad has enveloped me like gasoline,
And I’m going to ******* burn everything that dares to get too close.

The stars once told me you were out of my reach.
Our secrets were hidden by night, but the constellations saw the wreckage and whispered to me:

“You are made of light. Please don’t glow for an ice that won’t be melted”

Calla lilies bloomed in that field.
Each bud a was praise of emulation,
And each fallen petal was a baroque requiem.

My body is currency.
Its been stolen and spent
and affection is costly.
Friendship is costly.
Understanding is priceless.
This money is worthless.
When the hospital asks for insurance, I am
at a loss.
Why secure my future when my usual payment
method guaranteed I wouldn't have one?

I still can’t write about him.
I still can’t say his name.
He is “the guy”.
The guy who ruined my childhood,
The guy who stole not only the safety of my bed,
But the safety in my head.
They tell me not to “let him win” or “give him the power”
But he already has it all.
There is no power left to give.
No game left to be won.
No innocence left to be claimed.
He can look at me, and he will know I’m his.
I’m his.

Make my head stop spinning.
Make my heart stop aching.
Make it stop.

Understand my body is not currency

2. Stop resenting my body for being
something men can't help but want

3. Don't try and make myself undesirable

4. Don't turn people into medicine

5. Don't make a wound to distract from the
old one. They do not bleed the same.
Those scars are not noble.

The demon saw me sleepwalk,
now he knows what I’ve done.
I don’t know where I went,
but he does.
If we are defined by our actions,
He knows me better than I know myself.
That sentiment is more than haunting, so
I tried to ****** him into hell.
I am naked and exposed and vulnerable, and I would rather not need an exorcism.
But he walked away before I could cast him back into the underworld with all of the other evil spirits, who are also seeking the ruin of already broken souls.
So now he’s free, and I still don’t know what happened.
Where’d I go??
Where am I now??
And how do those two places connect???

Do the lillies bleed down there?
Do the butterflies drink their nectar?
Or do they save their sweetness for themselves,
The glucose glowing in their veins.

I didn’t realize that I didn’t have to tell them everything.
That my survirship was valid whether or not I gave them what they asked for.

I didn’t realize that seeing people gorge themselves on the feast that is my broken innocence was not a requirement.

I didn’t realize that I could take control over the story where my life was taken out of my control.

I didn’t realize.

What has happened here?
Why is everything broken?
Who have we become?

I have been feeling too much
So I can’t feel anything at all.
I’ve been so full,
But the pain became invisible.
I know it is there, but I can’t see it.

Sometimes I have to remind myself
That the reason I’m feeling light headed
Is because I haven’t taken a breath in almost 2 minutes.

The doctors might have stitched me up,
but I held that wound together.
Even when it bled and scabbed and itched, the
suture never ripped.
And when it finally fades into nothing but a faint
Scar , instead of an injury desensitized residents
dream of,
I will wear it proudly.
That save is mine.

A forced symphony
Sponsored by the lonely king
Has turned them to dust

I hate the fact that you could have me back in a heartbeat.
I remember the bad but I’ve forgotten the worst,
So I am yours for the taking,
And that ******* ****** me off.

I’m sorry I made you a monster.
I needed a demon I could trust.

Not enough to say it.
Not enough to feel it.
Not enough to numb it.
Not enough.
Period.

Holding people back is worse than being worthless, it’s costly.
They pay and pay and pay but why?
Why go into debt for me?
I can’t give you anything but these broken parts.
They aren’t beautifully tragic, they aren’t something that can be turned around.
They are just pathetic and sad and I’m a weight on your ankle.
How does it feel carrying 90 pounds plus the weight of the world?
Carrying the sky has crushed me and I threw that burden onto you too.
Congratulations for getting ****** in!
Was my siren melody too much for you?
I was sure they would of shoved the plugs into your ears.
My reputation precedes me.

I only see the good in you,
You only see the bad in me.

I guess opposites really do attract.

I want to create.
I want to make something worth your
attention, something that makes you see me.
Words have never worked.
Sorrys are always forced.
Promises are always broken.
But what I will forge out of the steel
and iron that kept me in darkness, will
radiate Power.
A fire of destroying pain.
A fire of cleansing pasts.
And a fire to radiate my love and
presence so you will be forced to
see me.

We were in magic when our hands grazed,
Our finger interlocked as the carousel turned, and so did my heart.
I felt it.
I felt the shift in my feelings and the butterflies in my stomach.
But when they saw, you let go.
And you kept letting go.
You want to hide me and I wanted to find you.
One day you wanted me.
The next day you didn't.
My start was your end.
There was no mistletoe to be found.
My sweet boy went silent.

Did you miss me?

I missed me and I’m drowning
But I need to spit out the ocean
So I’m here.

I was too ****** up to not push you away.
And I still am.
And I hurt you by being selfish and letting myself want you.
Because I do want you.
And somehow you have stuck around even though you’re with her.
I didn’t realize you’d stick around.
I’m so sorry.
I’m sorry I can’t give you what you need.
But they took what you need long ago.
But.
In a different world I could have been yours.

When I see you, my head pounds
When I talk to you, my throat is sore
Am I sick?
Or am I sick and tired of the ******* spewing out of your mouth like *****,
The tang leaving an aftertaste more sour than the way we left things.

Moving on is the best medicine,
But you doused me in the sickly sweet scent of your soul,
The formaldehyde keeping me from letting the memories decompose
So I kept fighting and I put  the relationship on life support.

It doesn’t matter though,
As the erratic beat turns into a flatline, I declared the time of death.
If you wouldn’t offer me a “clean” break I was going to make one,
even if it was riddled with more disease than the corpse.

I wanted to bury and mourn it, but our friendship is a morgue;
Sterile and haunted.
The husks of who we used to be dissected by my thoughts every chance I get.
Where did I go wrong?
The autopsy is inconclusive

Burnt sienna is the shade of exits.
When my trauma has become a load you’re no longer willing to help me bare,
No words will be necessary.
I won’t hate you, I truly understand.
It is dark, and sad and if I had the option of an out I would take it.
I won’t hold it against you.
You’re word will not be broken.
You said you’d never leave but you didn’t know what you signed up for.
Love, you are not a monster.
I am just a wreck.

Day 1 of you still wanting me was full of fear.
Day 2 of you still wanting me was full of waiting.
And then came day 3.
Day 3 you began to slip. I felt us start to go back to the way we were.
I skipped day 3 because even if you still cared I knew there wouldn’t be a day 4.

So day 1 of you not wanting me anymore was full of me trying to hang on.
I tried so hard to get you to stay because I need someone to listen and I want that someone to be you.
But the only thing you’ll ever want to hear are my sighs and my moans and your name dripping from my lips like honey.
And nothing in the world will make me sacrifice everything I love for a boy who only wants to ****.

I said “you think you want me.”
You corrected me.
You said “I know I want you.”
I almost choked on my laughter.
What other ******* did you possibly have up your sleeve?

If someone had told me last New Year’s Eve,
That a year later I wouldn’t be shattered,
I’d call them a liar.
But they are not a liar.
Over the course of a year, I have taken my broken glass and turned my pain into a stained glass window. Beautiful and living in color.

If someone had told me last New Years Eve,
That a year later people would know about my trauma,
I’d call them a liar.
But they are not a liar.
Seven months in, I stopped holding the burden alone, and the 4 year old trapped in me started to learn that her body is something not meant to be abused.

If someone had told me last New Years Eve,
That a year later instead of crying over him, I’d be with him,
I’d call them a liar.
But they are not a liar.
I took a terrible and broken situation and built a friendship out of it, and now that friend will be with me at midnight.

If someone had told me last New Years Eve,
That a year later I wouldn’t hate myself
I’d call them a liar.
But they are not a liar.
I have grown so much, I can’t even pick out a thing I don’t like about myself  anymore.
Cheers to that.

The lilacs of our love are dying and getting crushed by the fists of circumstance.
The aroma is sickly sweet, just like your embrace.
The backbone is snapped, just like mine was absent.

But I still wish it would continue to bloom