I am eight years old.
I hide behind the fence in our backyard,
the smell of damp leaves and rotting wood.
The mud ***** and slurps at my toes like some ravenous beast
as my brother bleeds at my mothers hands.
I am silent.

I am ten years old.
I hide behind the cracked old leather on a school bus.
Their laughter rises and falls like the bumpy gravel road.
I chip a bit of paint off the windowsill
and it breaks my heart.
I am silent.

I am fifteen years old.
I hide in a lightless back alley.
It reeks of something sweet threatening to make me gag as I clasp my hands over my mouth.
Flashes of red and blue pass once more chasing a scared, sad little heart as I hold my breath.
I am silent.

I am twenty one years old.
I hide behind the person
they know me to be.
Behind charming coos and witty jabs.
Behind a persona of indomitable strength.
I am the best of them,
of us.
The most well adjusted.
The luckiest and most fortunate.
Nothing is wrong,
after all,
they look at me and I have it all.
But in my mind
I am screaming.
In my mind I am already gone.

I tried to say
“I love you”
but the words caught in my throat.

I think I still do.

But every time I go to say the words they fail me.

Because every time I try,
I remember that even you
painted me
a shade of monster.

And try as I might,
I can’t get away from
the bite of your words.

So forgive me.
I think I still do,
but I can’t say that I love you.

She didn’t ask for jewels or clothes.
She didn’t ask for anything you could find in a store.

She only asked that I come back to her
&
that I bring with me a single leaf.

That is how Central Park
turned into a desert
and I,
the mad fool
picking through the grains of sand.

We could talk about everything,
laugh about nothing
and turn any day
into an adventure.

It wasn’t only that she was pretty
or smart
or felt like a part of me.

It was that she could give me something that I had hardly ever found before.

She could **** my mind in the most beautiful of ways
and make me ***
these ****** thoughts of mine.

Tearing turns to torn
as passion and pain
ebb into remorse.

I wish I could come,
and come undone,
within you forevermore.

Every lover is a new land.

Every rise and dip,
mountains and valleys to be charted.
Every bruise and bump
signs of explorers past.

Tales,
of love and lust and
roads not taken.

From icy plains and dunes of sand
to soft dappled meadows.
Rivers and lakes of gold and tan
to sunset lit crevices spread so narrow.

Every lover is a new land.

And my breath catches
at the beauty that I
gently caress
with trembling hand.

“**** me”
she said

As I twirled a finger;
down her cheek
to her lips
her collarbone
her *******
and more.

Slower and slower
I moved.
Lower and lower
whispering

“Soon”

Sheets gripped with talons,
lip bit with malice,
a dangerous game I played.

To grip a bull by the horns
means to eventually have to let go.
And the longer you hold on,
the wilder the ride will go.

“Soon”
I whispered,
and
“Please”
she begged...