I lived in a vast darkness.
A fragile silence that even choked sobs could break.
But the black glass of quiet shattered,
When you battered the door.
Its hinges screamed,
Just as you did.
I cowered in the corner when I heard the bottle explode,
From where you threw it.

Then it was a blur.
Threats to give me a "real reason" to cry.
More glass smashed against the oak, before it collapsed onto the tile floor.

A sudden clarity filled me as I heard the click of a lock.
You had trapped me here.
The dark I had once longed to be in became a cage.

I screamed.
Begged.
Clawed the wood until my fingers bled and the paint peeled.
But you stomped away,
Leaving me in a suffocating blackness.

Time had passed differently then.
A day had become weeks,
But also a second.
Hunger consumed me and I was left to rot in my own filth.
The acrid smell from the bottles on the other side of the door burning my nose.

I don't know how long I was in there.
I don't know if I'll ever find out.
I don't know if I'll ever be the same again.

I still sleep with a light on,
And I still sleep with my room door open.
And I refuse to open the hall closet
That you put me in as a punishment,
For accidentally breaking a small vase.

I thought it would turn out.
I thought the time acted in tune with me.
I thought I was strong.
I thought it would be like a movie.

I know it was my mistake.
I thought it all seemed to me.
I can't believe still
That the fate can so bully me

I feel time running like a wild animal tnrough my body
the air might hide from itself in the frenzy of an embrace
the molecules of emotion create the music of muscles, of spheres
I watch this momentum of life unfolding, rising and decreasing
passion feeds the wind, the waters, the eartquakes, it dances on liminal edges
bound and unbound the pulse of creation, of destruction
I am so very quiet, as quiet as the retina that translates the light
when the light touches you my optic nerves get burned but look
how strange,
I see further away into the clarity of hands

Can you feel the southern heat.?
In the midst of the day
Looking for relief
I wonder which way
       Should I go?
Can you feel the sun beating down?
Is there anyone around.?
I’m starting to feel down
Everywhere I look
The heat index is rising
Can you feel the southern heat?

i’m not like you.
me and you,
we are not the same.

you see a scratch,
i see a reason.
you ask why my arms look like this,
i say,
they’re just scars.

you pass by a razor,
i break it down in my mind.
you see a pocket knife,
i wonder
how sharp,
how deep,
how much.

you live.
i survive.

we are not the same.