Sometimes shoes are hard to fill
sometimes they feel like cement
but somehow I keep walking
whether on eggshells or stained glass apologies
I wither in the aftermath of accomplishment.

I am afraid of wanting more for myself.

where do you go when defeated is all you've ever known?
how do you make peace with a half-assed apology?

I am afraid this forgiveness makes me weak
weeping inside of the idea that I can be in control
of this trauma.

but the twin sized bed in my childhood home is more of a cage
and I am stuck there wishing I could escape.

wishing I could make something more of myself.
I am too visceral and not enough visual
this anxiety taking my breath
making me sick to my stomach
why can I not remember correctly?

No one talks about it.
No one gets how it feels to miss a memory
or how the presence of one
makes you lose reality.

My mind is stuck in fragmentation.

I'm tired of not remembering days
because of what she did to me.

Manipulation a scarlet letter on the chest of everyone.
My younger self tells me they all just want something.

No one can take anything away from you
if you have absolutely nothing left.

wipe the hard-drive clean
I will become obsolete.

I'm coughing up my lungs again,
smoking cigarettes I never had any intention of starting.
This isolation becomes inhalation
but it seems I cannot breath anymore.

Constantly searching for satisfaction I will never find
because it is found inside of things
I do not trust myself enough to keep
somehow I ruin everything.

Shallow tendencies weighing heavy inside of me
I guess I prefer semblance over substance.
So here I go again, locked inside an idea
rather than an entity.

I don't trust myself with sincerity-
too wrapped up inside attention
to be able to hold on to anything.

Carrying love would be too much.
I would crush the weight of it in my palms-
ash it like one of my cigarettes.

It would disappear every time I inhale.
It would disappear every time anyone got too close.

So I do not let them,
I tremble inside walls
and long hours
and become nothing
because that is what is expected of me.

Maybe I will gain the courage
by seeking someone that doesn't scare me so much.
Or maybe I just like the rush.

Stuck in an endless cycle of wanting love
and being scared of what it does to me.

So I **** down another cigarette
knowing this smell will stay with me.

Knowing this is as close to commitment as I will ever get.

Here's the dagger
use it in the same places on my back that you always do.
It's my only form of consistency.

Every time I turn around you're there, making me feel so unworthy.

Remove you from my mind and I become nothing-
just another sick sense of normalcy I've never been accustomed to.

This anxiety shakes my ribcage,
I'm having trouble breathing the same.
Having trouble feeling this way-

I haven't in a long time.

Not since the alcohol made you confident.
Not since my turtle neck and long black jacket.

You can only make progress by trying
but I am too consumed with your timing.

See I'm either reprimanded or taken for granted  
and in my mind that's inane.

In my mind I've gone concave.

Caving in again
I am now sheet rock and monolithic.

Show someone who has always had nothing
what having something is like and they might use it against you.

Too worried about who will have the last laugh
that we never think about the satisfaction.

I will become dust in your wake and we will both
make the mistake of letting stubborn tendencies fill the void.

This tension is leaving me desperate.
Wanting nothing from you, but all of your attention.

I'm dying to find your insides again
you lost them behind friends who never knew you.

but I still do.

I'm intoxicated inside this tragedy,
it weighs in my palms.

paints something timid
and thick like a calligraphy pen.

I try to write the words that keep me sane
and try to rationalize falling in love again.

but can I carry the weight?

will my palms be able to hold onto
both the pen and still maintain the penmanship
or is this dynamic too graphic
too unrelenting
and messy?

who will I become when the ink dries?

will I smudge this pain
onto the mouths of others?

or will my silence
be enough of a concealer-
or will my silence
be but a fashion accessory
that I wear on my wrist.

this fear it has no use for me anymore
it is just taking up space now.

I must find something to make it all worth it
something that looks a bit more pretty.

do I continue to carry this with me
when it is all I have ever known?

or do I learn to let it go?

so I write until the pen runs out of ink
and I seem to run out of stories.

maybe I'll make it out in one piece
or maybe I will make a piece out of it.

either way this is where the fear stops.

somewhere between lost earrings
and the stain of alcohol the next morning-
I have found something.

It's stuck behind my snaggle tooth
and beside the lump in my throat.

it's called salvation
it's called ambition
it's a misnomer that spells out the sound of my own voice
I will spill myself as ink spills on paper
and I will unfold, over and over again.

I will make more than a story out of this malice.

I'm sorry for what this pain
has turned me into.

I'm almost 23
still I sit
uncomfortable
with the parts of myself
I should've felt okay with at 12.

But I am stuck there.
A small girl
painting on her skin
wondering why everyone
makes such a big deal out of her body.

But still I am stuck here.
A grown woman
tearing at her skin
wondering why
she feels so outside of her own body.

Everyone wants something from me
there is only so much I have left to give.

They wonder why I cannot
push past this pain.

They wonder why I won't
shut the **** up about it.

It is lined inside my DNA now
my genome is riddled with trauma.
It is as much apart of me
as the these veins inside my skin.

I am weak
in the same breath
as I am strong.

Taking steps backwards
until I meet the small girl
that was ruined by another.

I shake her hand
and thank her for the progress.

I look in the mirror and do the same.

But all I see is my trauma
lapping over my eyelids.
Stuck inside of my reflection
my abuser stares back at me.
Smirking.

Stop making me remember
I am trying to forgot.

But this is just as much apart of me
as I am apart of it.

It will never be a second cousin
twice-removed.

It will forever be malignancy.  

There is no remission for this.

No black box warning
on the side of these pills
because I will end up killing me first.

my savior is myself
and I am swallowing solitude whole.

once again I am sitting inside
all of this dissatisfaction
awaiting the perfect storm
awaiting to be reborn.

but this trauma lingers in the shadows
it always seems to follow me
while everyone is shouting,
why can't you make it leave?

so I'm stuck in explantion
surrounded by those
who will never understand
this severity.

I sink.
I sulk.
I'm dirt,
I'm mulch.

The thing that makes others grow,
but they seem to always toss aside.

I am scuff on shoes,
and chips in paint
and no one will look at me
as anything but.

still I sit
idly awaiting the instructions
on how to rid of this weight.

clinging to this hope
inside of my chest
but chagrin finds me
charges me a fee of suffering
and reminds me I am nothing.

just the supplement
to a walking monument
of something I will never beat.

this trauma it lives with me
it stands in my silhouette -

maybe I'm just the shadow to it.

I watch the ache in my chest
for you
dissolve into a quiet whisper.

I rethink every decision ever made
as these memories are telling me a story
about my progress
as if it was someone else's

will I always stand inside the shadow of another?

will even my own not be enough company to keep me sane?

why do I love lonely but crave the embrace?

I'm watching my expression change,
with every single word I say
and every single thing I feel.

it seems it's all imagined,
the desire for infatuation
and lust and connection.

it's all just ego.

I am nothing but
a whisper in the ears of no one.

should I even speak at all
when my words don't mean anything to even me.

never have I been trusting.

and here I go-
coming undone again.

thinking the world of myself
but the world is ******
so that's counterproductive,
isn't it?

paradoxical contingencies
keep me awaking from these dreams.

go to sleep it's a nightmare
and wake up it's the same.

my vision is getting blurry
and my voice now shakes
from inadequacy.

I love every part of me
so how could this be happening?

my shadow laughs back at me,
reminds me I am the same girl I was
19 and addicted to things.

almost 23 and it's more of the same-
23 and I've lost almost everything.

so what's another 23 years?