there is nothing
more earthshattering
than discovering
someone you loved
is a stranger;
nothing more than a
monster in a familiar mask

I am out at sea.
I am alone and I am lost.
I am scared and so my whole being starts to drown.
I see nothing but  darkness,  
as I start to fall deep into the ocean.

I hear his voice.
Wait! I hear my lovers voice,
but I can't see him.
He is pulling me out.
He is helping me fight this storm.
He tells me all will be well.

I make it, and my head is above water.
I am able to breath and move.
I smile, hoping to see him by my side, but he is not there.

I realise that my lovers words are my hope.

One.
One year later and l have learnt that a light  house will survive everything and will never hold a grudge against the waves.
So let me lead you home.
Let me direct your path. Allow me to be your safety despite the destruction you have become my love.
Let me be something.

a bowl of black beans / your mother sitting on the other side of the kitchen / this liquidation of self / you would be something / anything / anyone / if it could make you safe / the black beans taste like nothing now / you aren’t crying but you’re **** near it / your mother makes a honey sweet remark / won’t you stay alive / and / eat your beans then we’ll leave / and you don’t have an answer but you listen / you are pleading with the voices to let you eat the beans and make them taste less like bleach / your mother bleached your hair when you were fourteen and you bleached your skin at sixteen / you drank that same bleach from that same bottle three days after your sixteenth birthday/ but this is a bowl of beans and it tastes like that time / smells like that time / your throat coughing up blood and your body wretching to *****.

a bowl of black beans / your mother takes that bowl and washes it out in the sink / you still have that hoarse voice from imagining it tastes like bleach / you still have that ***** wretch instinct because of how much your throat stings / then mother says; you’ll stay with them for some time / as if that makes anything better / a drive into the emptiness of a psychiatric hospital / a place they’d sent you when you were ten because you were so angry and so depressed / you break when the blue tiles turn to ocean and you drown / you break when the red tiles turn to fire and burn your toes / you are hungry again / but you know everything you eat will taste like bleach.

you can’t sleep because the bleach is still on your tongue / you think of that bowl of black beans / your mother sitting on the other side of the kitchen / maybe you’d see her smile again / maybe you’d be broken and be able to exist comfortably / don’t you want to survive to see that?

you answer / no / i’d rather die than be patronized.