when all I would seek was flesh to consume me
so my eyes would hide behind tears so deep
and scars that ran so deep inside of me
so you wouldn’t see my pain
so my laugh would ring in the walls
so you wouldn’t see how I am dying inside
every single day
still now, even though I am healing,
still it feels like the maze of pain will never ever end
the mask falls
and I feel that people don’t really like me
maybe they just put up with me
because I speak reality to ones who don’t want to see it
and truth is most people don’t want to see it
but I grasped the straws and strings of my life to make it through

so when it’s late at night I am there in that place again
trauma dumping, oversharing,
wanting someone to see my pain
to grab my hands
to say I see you, I know, it’s okay
but I wish I didn’t want it so bad
I wish I could let the validation fade away already
I wish I didn’t cry so much
and miss my family so much
the one who broke my heart into shreds so deep
that all I feel is a deep piercing aching pain every day
like a knife in my heart, in my chest

all I knew my whole life was a feeling of wrongness inside of me
that I was born wrong
that I didn’t deserve to exist
when my father would crawl into my bed each night
and I hoped for death
all I wanted was to be a bird
and to wash my cuts away in the sink at night

so then when I grew up,
I ran from religion
I ran off to a faraway land
and soaked my bed with the scent of men who liked to prey on me
because I thought being prey was love
and the addiction became so deep of wanting men to see me
that it’s all I live for still
and yet it’s an addiction that I can’t seem to run from
no matter how many boundaries I put up

all I want is love, I scream
but I rarely, if ever, am texted first
my whole life I lie on my bed gasping in pain for hours a day
and when I leave my house and go outside
people ask me if I am okay
and I say yes
but no — I am not. I never am
even when I have some hours of reprieve
even when I am healthier
even when I am working on my mindset
my pain is so, so deep
that I don’t know how I will recover

because how does one recover from being sexually abused so severely, the way that I have?
how does one recover from being severely abused in almost every single manner your whole life?
how does one recover from starvation?

then I live in a land where people look away from starving children
and are shocked that I care
and laugh
what has died so deeply inside of you
that you can’t see to care about others dying in the ditch in Gaza two hours from you
as in pain as I am

maybe my pain made me see right
that we are all human
and no one ever deserves this

I spoke to the soldier the other night who almost died for no reason
and I think about another man on the other side of the wall, starving
and I wonder
yet one is called a hero
the other is the terrorist
nope
maybe both are just controlled
and stuck in a cruel world

it feels too harsh
to see too much all of the time
I feel that I am who I am — what I am — is too much for the world
always and all of the time
that’s it

I don’t know what to say anymore
I am so hated by my family and by so many others
that I don’t know how to get over it
I don’t know how to get past
being hated
for my existence on this earth.

its reckoning isn't it that we assume so much about others
only in order to realize that it is our pain
our mirror
reflecting and looking back at us
different cultures show me how much my american culture
has been so toxic
and indocrinated me in many ways
that are unhealthy
I have pushed so many people away
all because they loved me
saw me and honored me
and I couldn't see it .
because I was so hellbent on hurting myself.
wow life is truly shocking isn't it
maybe learning to have fewer words is the way .

No peace
I feel erased literally figurtively
I don't know
I dont have words to say anymore
The grief i feel about everything is all consuming
I have left everything
Or has it all left me
I am unsure
I am an orphan in the world
Misunderstood
Literally and figureitvely
I feel that i dont fit .
All i feel most of the time is pain
Even doing things that i like
Like now sitting for coffee
The pain is my accompanying figure
My partner in life
I have no one
No one wants to be my friend that is healthy and worthwhile
Noone asks me if i am okay
Which by the way even when i am better
I am still very much not okay
And like how would I be?
I dont wonder anymore
But i do wander about the lack of complexity in the world
The lack of empathy and humanity
Especially in the west
All i see is harm even within the helping
Not just harm but large amounts of it
I feel that my voice is choked within but i always knew no matter the pain
I wont change or hurt myself to be someones muse or to be more palatable but the rest of me
I guess hasn't caught up yet
Hasn't unchained myself
From my chains although
The chains still feel deep and cut deep
Oh how i long for the simple privelages that others have .
How I long .

I feel I carry holes of scars on my back
I cry for the basic things
like people want to see me
but not know me
because i expose their shadows
their secrets inside that they don't
or don't wanna name
i have to listen to violent rheteric
and i have to bite my lip
to not say how I feel
it feels all consuming
I feel in pain all of the time in a soulful manner
a spiritual manner a emotional and physical one
I feel like all I do is grieve grieve everything
allow it to shatter all my past illusions
i was more than a body
i am a soul
i am a human being
I feel like what it means to be so dehumanized and in pain
My truth is not accepted
because it pokes holes in the others around me
so I try to speak up and out
but I find it so hard and belligerant
like holes on the sidewalk
poking through as you walk by
like others looking at you in shock
when you daresay that is morally wrong .
the world has gone in decay
and i am suppose to live as if everything is okay ?

its a love that is so deep in my soul
no matter how much i grieve
i still think about you  
i think you will always be a part of me
my childhood friend my first lover my ex best friend
and the one who hurt me so deeply
i miss your spirit
and i know that you are one of the few who won't know
my true feelings for you
maybe love never dies
maybe it comes with you to the grave
my soul misses you
idk I dreamt about you last night
I remember how we used to talk about raising our kids together
I doubt that
I will never know if you loved me back like that
for you are married and religious still
it hurts
I have cried oceans of tears over you
my love my ex friend
and you will never know.

I feel the holes inside of me,
The pain of witnessing and knowing unimaginable horrors and destruction feeling hopeless,
The music plays
Of ancient sounds old and new.
I hum along
Read stories of anguish
From a mere three hours away from me,
Divided and separated by language sound, cultural divides and walls.
But not by heart.
Never knew I could feel so much,for those whom,I was taught to hate for whom I was taught are different,
In their humanity.
When no we are all one!
Despite our perceived difference,
We are all human deserving and worthy.
Their anguish I carry along with me,
A brutal reminder to not dehumanize
As the music gets louder
My heart grows softer.

The enormity of pain
of having to leave behind everything that I have ever known
its been time, but the grief aches in my bones.
I miss my old life desperately
even though it was filled with swords of pain and abuse
I miss my" family" my "friends."
my naievity about this hateful ideology
it was easier to live in some ways.
But also much more hellish
now I am a lot more at peace and so much healthier
and so very very lonely.
i have no real friends and no one in my life
the lonlieness i feel it, eating me alive as well as my depression.
They are my closest friends.
And here i am at 28 and all i do is grieve
grieve for everything!
and i couldn't even put pen to paper for months,
i feel like a sore thumb
in a society that is morally depraved psychopathic and psychotic.
In a world that is uncaring for people like me
That lacks a Basic Understanding
of the chronically ill chronically mentally in pain.
Yet still here i am trying
finally receiving help that i have needed,
prayed for and searched for
for years.
So why do i feel worse ?
probably for finally feeling the enormity of everything.
That is hitting me all at once.
The enormity of pain
Of leaving religion ideologies
Families,
an old country that i still long for
But i know that i can't go back to.
Of community
Of old age traditions.
But here i am lovingly and hatingly picking myself up,
painting writing reading learning
healing
learning to piece together my own religious meaning,
my own way of performing it.

I still feel so lost and so in pain
but here are my feelings out on paper,
struggling screaming for so long to be seen in so so many ways.
In a world that is psychopathic and i feel that it in itself
has lost all meaning to its madness,
and truth is stranger than fiction
and it is what most avoid and don't like hearing.
So i feel often at times
That i must hide myself out in the open,
un -belonging
holding the keys,
the bearer of witnessing
Horrors
Processing all that i have lived through, in this land
and the other land of the forefathers.
writing about my stories of grief © Jan 26, Ari