What a dull day
Completely unworthy
Of a poem

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

The first time: A breath of steam, rising from a deep-toned, treacle brown liquid, turning darker by the minute as the leaves slowly steeped their essence into the scalding water, providing me energy enough to open my eyes... and look straight into the fogged glass, the first clear look of the world this day.

The second time: A tickle in my nose, rising in intensity, making my eyes scrunch in reflex. AAACHHOOOOO! I open my eyes, newly released from the lids that caged their sight, and see... fog.

The third time: A building frustration, a feeling of falling, trying to grasp all the responsibility given to me in less than an hour, and failing. Hopeless, I know, and useless as well, but I go though the day's events, each one compounding upon itself in my hindsight assisted by the salty water pooling in the corners of my eyes until I can't see anything at all... Oh wait. It's just the fog in my glasses.

"*******."
That's what she said to me.
And I would be the first to admit that I am.
But when she shouts at me
Selfish
Worthless
Callous
I rebuke it immediately.
(I can't do anything right.)
"*******."
I get out of the car.
"Thanks for the ride.
Have a nice day, mom."

I walk into school
With her words ringing in my ears.
*******.