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Jen Grimes Mar 2016
Two days ago
My sister claimed
That you were emotionally abusive,
I didn’t think it was true until last night
When your hand struck out
And,
Gripped my shoulder
And,
You told me I wasn’t following the rules.
I watched the door shut in front of me
And,
My mouth went dry with words I couldn’t speak.

I try not to remember
The good things about you
Anymore.
Because a bottle  
Of cheap *****
Isn’t enough when
I feel like I’m swallowing
The sea.

Instead my mind
Plays back images of your hands slamming against
The punching bag that you kept hung in your basement.
I wonder if you’ve ever pictured
Your fist hitting my face
While you were sweating out your anxieties.
Somehow,
You still had leftover
Anger bottled up
And,
You raged at me.

In February
It felt like my first time
All over again,
Your hands were gentle and,
My heart quaked but
I tried my hardest not to cry.

I had always looked out
At the world with hard fists
And,
Cold eyes, but you touched my heart
On your couch.

78 days later
All we had left in common
was *** and hanging on for dear life
To the scraps of us.
Your knuckles were scraped up
but you still managed
To **** me
While the stereo
Played every track I knew.

I touched your back
Like I used to play piano,
I tried to read the knuckles in your spine
Like brail
And,
Bring us back to
January 27th
When touching you
Was like slow dancing in the rain.
Jen Grimes Mar 2016
I know you’re sad, I feel it too. As if the galaxy left us with nothing but the moon. The only constellations I can remember were in his eyes, when he looked at me. But I try not to remember, sometimes his pupils tried to tell me he was addicted, I ignored it. Let me tell you, love, he’s not it. He is not the galaxy when suns burn in your irises. His bones aren’t as fragile as yours; they don’t have words carved into them like the tree in your backyard. Don’t carve them there love, they don’t belong. His hands only made you recoil after that January, you thought he was a furnace but honey your forgetting how he burned you alive. Don’t you remember in August when you kept cutting your hair, trying to get rid of yourself?
Your mother didn’t raise you for this; she baked homemade bread to warm the house with love. She also cooked you up in her stomach for months, darling, you held tight to her pinky and I don’t remember her ever letting go.
I know you’re sad, I know its cold and brittle and January makes your spine quiver. I lay in bed too at 2pm, shutting the blinds because I want to delete the world too sometimes. Letting go is a funny thing, you see when I let go, my mom knew I was ready to walk out into the world. Those first steps were brilliant, relief from fear, headlights to freedom.
My dad taught me how to ride my bike without training wheels. He held on to the back seat and I screamed, “Daddy don’t let go!” It was a hoax really, because we all know he was going to. But he told me he wouldn’t. I went squealing down the track in triumph, like the world was under my feet and I was right on top. The bones on my bike broke, and the skin of my mouth cracked; we both smiled. That was the first time a man ever lied to me.
I feel it too. Holes in my skin, holes in my sweater; I’m avoiding it. Stitching it back up would disprove my denial; I don’t want patches or Band-Aids because they don’t hold. We fall down, we open scabs and the holes rip open again. I looked back at him, before I fell; I looked back.  He drove away and I looked back, because instead of scabbing my knee, there was a hole tearing into the skin of my heart.
I know it’s sad, I know you cried each night he was gone. But darling leave the scissors there; your mother loves your golden brown hair. She’s the one who sends you care packages on the weekends, because she feels it too, when you’re sad. Her skin itches and breaks because mothers know, they just know. She bakes bread on Wednesdays when she misses you, tucking the warmth into her house, your house. Dad eats it at night so he can fill his house with warmth and Mom wraps in it tinfoil so when it comes in the mail, you can feel its warmth too.
I know you’re sad, I feel it too. There’s an imprint in the mattress from where he used to lay down and fill up your eyes with stars. Love, he’s not the sand man; I know you stay there too long, on the mattress; your tea gets cold while you’re still trying to trace his lips on your mouth. You won’t find him there, just the remnants of cracked lips and the warmth will be gone.
Don’t worry though, mom will keep making bread and sending you her love through the oven. You burned through her belly and she always knew the galaxy was there, on the soles of your feet. Don’t stop running darling, keep moving forward, stamp every place with the stars on your toes.
I promise when he comes along, he’ll tell you about the stars. Orion’s belt and Saturn’s rings. I promise your tea will always be warm and he’ll help you understand the words on your spine. He’ll like your mother’s bread almost as much as you do and you can lay in the bed of his truck instead of on the mattress while the warmth fills your bellies. Dad told me the sky goes on forever, I think he was right.
  Mar 2016 Jen Grimes
sempiternal
Stop trying to remember his scent, he smelled like summer and reminds you of the time he made you laugh so hard, you snorted out milk on that dead, hazy day.

2. Don't waste your day trying to decipher what colour his eyes were, it'll only remind you of the galaxies and constellations that you once saw in his eyes

3. Stop trying to retrace the shape of his mouth in the middle of the night, you'll choke on your tongue trying to taste the mint he devoured seconds before pulling you in for a kiss

4. Stop reliving the times you clasped hands together, the glass plate will fall off your trembling hands.

5. Burn this list, admit that the galaxies and constellations shining in his eyes were wilted, the one in yours are bursting with fire. Remember on the dead, hazy day his laugh sounded like nails running down a chalkboard. Remember when you kissed, the weeds growing from his mouth entangled the roses blooming in yours.

Realize that one day, another boy is going to come and plant daisies where he left behind thorns.
Jen Grimes Feb 2016
It was 2am
And the L-trains were still moving
We
Were still moving
Bodies

Freshness poured from my mouth
And my skin waited
For flakes to sprinkle down from
The ash

There was no snow
Only clouds sluggishly
Whirling by

I don’t think they had much better to do
The clouds, except watch a spectacle
And his girl
Get high

Traces of marijuana
Stamped out by light blue
Spirits

They bit their lips
Let the smoke omit from tired lungs
And reveled in sleeping on clouds

He flicked the **** to the ground
Dirt caked in brown snow
Caked in muddy grass

She wanted to throw her body
To the hillside
Find long grass and tousled hair
Lay in the fray until the sun peeked out
Behind evanescent clouds

But it was 3am
The L-trains stopped moving
When they did

Jupiter aligned with its moons
And she turned on her back
Exposing her underbelly
To the brightest side of the moon.
Jen Grimes Feb 2016
It rained
There was ice in a patch
Blocking entrance to the gazebo
Dry, a shelter in the foggy, wet
Weather
We passed the **** back and forth
A ritual
Breaking our lungs
Forcing the smoke in to gravitate our minds to another place
You're my favorite partner in crime
The rain kept us in a soundtrack
On repeat
And I lit a cigarette
To keep us dry a little longer
Jen Grimes Feb 2016
She is comfort after a sea of dreams
Her friends and her eat clouds for breakfast
She likes espresso beans for the buzz
Buzz buzz
Sometimes I catch her dancing around the room
Folding laundry and picking up her room
To the buzz buzz
Buzz
Of acoustic symphonies
I taught her about the strings  
And she showed me the power of words
I strum and she stumbles for syntax
Metaphors come easiest to her
In the dream we meet by the shore
There's always wind blowing through her sandy blonde locks
Sometimes I catch her
But most nights
She floats away with the clouds
Buzz buzz
Buzz
Jen Grimes Feb 2016
So here I am
Tied to this lie
That somehow
You could find me again
That somehow
I would find you alone

And maybe this time,
You’d pick up the phone.

I’m not out of the woods yet
But you’re in the clear
Somehow to you,
This seemed fair

I thought we stood a chance
I thought we had a fair fight
Everyone but me
Seemed to know I wasn’t right

Its 3am
When I reach for the phone
But in the dark, in my room
I’m answered by your dial tone

The past haunts me
Every step of the way
Makes me wish you would track me down
Or find the courage to stay

There’s this fight within me
Scraping at the door
Thirsty, dehydrated
Falling through memories, wishing for more

I’m looking forward
That’s a fact
But I’ve never felt this inclined
To turn back

Turning over stones as if
You’re hidden just beneath
Only to have the tide come in
And sweep our handprints into the deep

So here I am again
Tied to
“I’m fine.”
Because you’re the only one
Who knew
When I lied.
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