**** the heart
(or was it the hurt)
I need to borrow your spine
Mine is buried in my closet
I have fracture patterns etched into my skin
In the shape of your knuckles
the blue carpet in the living room is worn down
Two spots where my knees fit perfectly
Because praying to god felt a lot like having control back
**** the hurt
(or was it my heart)
The first time I wrote out your name
My hands shook so badly
Because I was always told
names have power
I wasn’t sure if I would survive you having anymore over me
I need to borrow your spine
mine is buried 6 feet deep
I have the taste of ash on my tongue
as you lit everything on fire
And watched it burn and burn
when I woke up in the burnt out shell of house and body
I knew I only had three things left to do
**** the heart, **** the hurt, and bury the spine
Survive
Survive
Survive

What would you do to get back their love?

I would destroy cities
I would collapse mountains
Let rivers run dry
Give them everything that they didn’t already have of me
(which is nothing)
( I gave it all)
It still wasn’t enough
They wanted to take my hurt
( It’s the only thing I have left)
( It’s a broken bone I won’t ever let heal)
Tell me it wasn’t that bad
To think about the people who have hurt me
(Won’t this hurt them?)
Would they say that
if they knew about everything
(About all the things to ***** to see sunlight)
(I love them .I must love them . I love them )
It doesn’t erase the things
that need to be said so I can be better
What would you do to get back their love?
Everything but give up the love I have for myself.

- Sometimes there is no easy words for the hurt

Your secrets know their place
(next to mine. hers. ours)
Beneath floorboards
you can hear them at night
Haunting this house
Palms pressed against wood
late in the night
With your ear against the cool floor
You listen to them speak to you
Begging to be let out
(they are always begging)
They want to breathe the same air as you again
But all you can do
is feel like you are choking
(God i'm gasping for air)
These words getting stuck in your throat
Sink to the bottom of this foundation
And regrow into a home where these secrets have no place to ruin.

-Secrets will rot this foundation and you will spend a very long time digging your way out

I think maybe I would have liked
To have been loved gently
But I sunk
With broken knees at your alter
Pledged Allegiance to a false god
Who spoke the Old Testament like it was truth
And the hands that were wrapped around my throat
were dipped in holy water
so even in death I was blessed
He will preach
To all the women he has turned into sin
Say -with a soft caress across my check
That echos and vibrates off the walls
Like the silence after a gun shot
“If you love me you’ll do this.”
manipulation comes easy to him
Hand to God
he is your salvation
And no one will ever love you like he does.


- He can’t be your salvation
- Because you already saved yourself

I am seventeen years old
And I’m sitting at the bottom of my tub.
I’ve cracked my wrists open like the windows in my room-
I’m trying to let some light in
I need to breathe fresh air into my body.
this is the only way I know how
I have closed the curtains,
boarded up the doors.
you had a key
And you trekked in mud and pine needles from the giant spruce tree outside.
I pick them out of my hair
And line them up on the side of the stained porcelain tub.
I am thinking of putting out a foreclosure sign in my front yard-
Abandoning these halls and leaving everything but this stained tub behind.
Seventeen is hard and rough,
It had calloused hands and it took things from me I wasn’t ready to give.

- I am twenty now
- And I’ve redone my home and tore out the stained tub

I have miles and miles of skin.
Untouched
I have miles and miles of skin.
Begging to be loved,
Some of it
has been marred
With hungry hands and bruising grips.
Some has been stitched together
With a cool demeanour and practised fingers.
Parts bare scars of a desperate girl-
Looking for a way to feel something
All of it is wholly mine

- this body is my home and I have let many people decorate it because I thought they would stay.

“I want to be a good man”
He tells you with eyes like a summer storm
All roaring thunder and howling wind
“Help me be a good man”
And so you help him

You lead him to the well
You show him how to drink
And you think this is love
You think this is how it grows

“I want to be a good man”
He tells you with eyes like a summer storm
All shadowed intent and a flash of warning
“Help me be a good man”
But you don’t want to help him anymore

You lead him to the well
Try to leave as he forces you to stay
Watch as the blood washes from his hands
And you think this is love
This is how it wilts

“I want to be a good man”
He looks at you and his eyes are red
You’ve long since adjusted to their madness
“Help me be a good man”
But you won’t help him anymore

You lead him to the well
Push him in when his back is turned
Watch him drown as he reaches upwards  
And you think this is love
This is how it returns to you